Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to the real people who inspired the characters in this book, and who painstakingly helped me through out it's making; Nadine Howick, who kept my life interesting, Lisa Crocker, without her sense of humor, this story wouldn't have been the same, Emily Comeau, who's level headed Librian logic got me over some tough spots, Louise Whitehorne, who at one point offered to do the cover art for me, Krista Hiltz, who made me forget about this story when I was too involved, Shelly Snow, whose comments and criticisms were well needed, to Andrew Portolesi, whose jokes and optimism kept me happy, and especially, to my best friend, Sarah Bennett who pushed me on during all the tough spots and forced me to write when I was stuck at themuch cursed blinking blue button. Also, to the rest of the Twelve who showed up in my life after the story was written, Andrew Cranston, Jimmy Brown and Josie Baker, who made me wonder if I had created them.
Thanks.

Prologue

      "Let's just get this over with so we can go home," I said impatiently.
      "Yeah, I want to go home too,"
      All twelve of us were feeling uneasy about this whole thing, but we didn't have a choice. We had to help them, I mean, we couldn't exactly refuse after all they'd done for us, and we had sort of promised. I looked around at my friends. They all seemed anxious to start so I closed my eyes and tried concentrating on what we were supposed to be doing.

      Something's wrong. They're taking our energy away all at once, and too fast. I try to scream, or break away from this deadly circle, but I don't have any control over my energy. They've taken over completely. I hear an evil laugh in my head. I'm really scared and so is everyone else, but I can't do anything about it. We're all going to die.

Chapter 1
Leda

      I woke with a start from my dream. My radio was on. The last chords of my favorite song ended and the announcer came on with the news.
      "Twelve children between the ages of ten and fifteen went missing yesterday afternoon from the Chester area. Police have no leads at this time, but they don't suspect any foul play at this point. And in local news, twelve boxes of Macaroni and Cheese were stolen from a Sackville grocery store. Boy, someone must have been hungry! Now back to our all music hour, on 102.4 on your FM dial."
      I rolled off my bed and groaned as I hit the floor, "Just a few more weeks of school," I told myself.
      I stood up groggily and shook the dreams from my head. I realized that my clock was saying 7:00 and I had to get ready for school before I was late. I looked at myself in the mirror. My short blond hair was a mess. I ran a brush through it quickly, got dressed and ran down stairs for breakfast. On the way out the door, grabbed my video tape for French, and started off for school. The tape was a French movie I'd taped a while back that our French teacher was hopefully going to let us watch.
      I met my best friend Chelsea Bateman at our usual spot at the top of my street. Her long brown hair was in two braids with little ribbons on the ends. A typical Chelsea hair style.
      "Leda, did you bring the tape for last class?" asked Chelsea hopefully.
      "Of course I did. You think I'd miss a chance to get out of doing work during French class? Especially for a movie," I replied.
      "I can't wait," she squeaked, "I've never seen this one before. I hope that Sethe and Ginny can come and watch it with our class."
      "Well, with Mme. Theriault you never can tell."
      "Too true," I said.
      We laughed and continued on the path to school.
      "Shoot," I said after checking to see if we were late, "I left my watch at home. I hate it when I do that."
      "Yeah, it drives me nuts when I don't know what time it is, that's why I have you as a friend. You nearly always have your watch. But," she added cheerily, "I've got mine!!"
      "Miracles never cease," I muttered, "Chelsea remembered something that I forgot."
      "Hey!" she hit me playfully on the shoulder.
      As we turned into the driveway, in front of the big, brick, prison like building they call a school, Ginny Haldin and Sethe Roberts came running toward us. Ginny's reddish hair was cropped short in her newest style and her grey eyes were shining. She was obviously extremely excited about something. Sethe's long, black hair was loose, as usual, and flying every which way in the wind, including straight up. Sethe and Ginny are in grade eight a year behind Chelsea and I at Crossroads Junior High School.
      When Ginny and Sethe finally got to us, they were out of breath and really excited. Ginny started on the morning news at top speed.
      "Laura - broke - up - with - Chris - because - he - wouldn't - take - her - to - the movies - Mr. Ashman - is - sick - and - his - substitute - is - new - she's - a - woman and - I - think - it's - her - first - time - at - this - school - but - considering - how - many - days - I've - been - sick - with - the - flu - lately - I - can't - be - sure - Mme. Theriault - is - in - a - good - mood - so - I - hope - we - can - watch - that - movie - with - you - guys - and - you - guys - have - a - new - student - in - your - class - she - has - long - red - hair - green - eyes - she's - an - Aries - she - came - from - Fredericton - she's - fairly shy - and - she - doesn't - like - bananas."
      Only Ginny could get all that out in one breath.
      "What's her name?" I asked, interested. It's not everyday we get a new kid.
      "Do I look like Nostradamus? How should I know?"
      "You mean, you know, like, her entire life story, and you don't know her name?" Chelsea sighed, "Ginny, I just don't get you."
      "That was my plan," said Ginny, grinning evilly.
      The first bell rang, so we started towards the school.
      "So you guys up for a picnic at lunch?" asked Sethe. "We could invite the new girl, if she's nice."
      "Cool! I can't wait. I'm so glad that it's nice out so we can go picnic in the park," I said enthusiastically, "I hope it stays sunny."
      "Are we doing anything this weekend?" asked Chelsea.
      "Let's go to the movies," suggested Ginny.
      "No can do. I'm totally broke." said Amy Weatly, another friend, joining us at our lockers.
      "Me too," I said sadly. "I haven't baby-sat in months."
      I got my books, then, as I was about to close my locker, I realized that someone was standing behind me. I turned around, and there she was. I guessed she had to be the new girl that Ginny had been babbling about. I smiled and introduced myself.
      "Hi, my name is Leda Chalmers. You must be new here."
      "Yeah, I am. Can you tell me where locker 090 is?" she asked timidly.
      "Sure, It's right here under mine."
      "Thank-you."
      "I'll see you in class," I said, closing my locker.
      "How do you know I'm in your class?" she asked.
      "Word gets around pretty fast here"
      "Oh. Could you tell me where Home Room is?"
      "It's just right here," I said, pointing to the door.
      "Thank's again."
      I went into class and sat down at the table I share with Chelsea. We turned around to talk to Amy about the newest movies that were opening and the possibility of Chelsea cutting her nearly waist length hair. She's always threatening to do it but never gets up the nerve. I saw the new girl walk in looking lost, so I called her over to sit with us. She looked relieved and sat down in the seat next to Amy. Amy immediately introduced herself.
      "Hi my name is Amy Weatly. I hope you like the Crossroads, even if there is only one month left till summer."
      "Hi, I'm Chelsea Baseman. Ginny told us you're an Aries."
      I put my head in my hands and sighed at Chelsea. A lot of people are sort of put off when we talk about astrology because they think it's pretty weird.
      The new girl caught my gesture and said, "Oh it's okay. I'm into astrology too."
      I perked right up at that.
      "Great! We have something in common then." I said happily. "I'm a Cancer, Chelsea's a Capricorn, and Amy's an Aquarius."
      "You don't seem to act very much like an Aries." said Chelsea. "Aren't most Aries really loud and obnoxious, and full of themselves?"
      "Open mouth, insert foot," I muttered.
      "Oops, sorry," she apologized.
      "That's okay. They normally are but my moon is in Pisces and it affects me a lot," she said, "You don't act like a Capricorn very much either."
      "I know," replied Chelsea, "My moon's in Cancer, thank goodness. Capricorns's are so depressing."
      O' Canada came on the P. A. so Chelsea and I turned around and stood up to sing. Then class began. Our first period was Math in French.
      Monsieur LeBlanc introduced the new girl as Charlotte Webber. The class giggled, and Charlotte turned a lovely shade of bright pink. Monsieur LeBlanc looked confused. He can be so dense sometimes. He asked Charlotte to go up in front of the class and tell us a little about herself. She got up and said, with a French accent that put the rest of us to shame, that her name is Charlotte, she came from Fredericton, and this was the first time she had ever moved. She then walked back to her seat and sat down, now beet red. Monsieur LeBlanc asked Chelsea, Amy and I to fill Charlotte in on what we were doing in Math.
      At lunch, I showed Charlotte the Cafeteria, and introduced her to everyone, while Sethe and Cole stood in line to buy fries.
      "Charlotte, this is Ginny Haldin, and Nick Roby." I said pointing to each of them as I introduced them, "Sethe Roberts and Cole Austin are over there buying fries, but I would suggest only bumming fries off of Sethe, because Cole absolutely drowns his in just about everything up there. They've been declared a health hazard."
      Charlotte laughed, even though there wasn't anything to laugh about. I was totally serious about Cole's fries. They were not for the weak of mind, or stomach.
      "I saw you this morning," said Ginny, enthusiastically shaking Charlotte's hand.
      "I'm glad to meet you all," said Charlotte looking a bit overwhelmed.
      "Hey, I forgot to ask you. Where are you going for lunch?" I asked Charlotte.
      "I'm... well I don't know? I guess I'm going to eat my lunch here."
      "You could come to the park and have a picnic with us?" suggested Sethe.
      "What picnic? And why, pray tell, wasn't I informed of it's occurance?" Nick said, feigning being terribly insulted. What he lacks in height, he makes up for in dramatics and large vocabulary.
      "Chelsea, I asked you to tell Nick about the picnic!" I said, picking up on Nick's melodrama, "Whatever am I going to do with you?"
      "Sorry," she mumbled sarcastically.
      "Anyway," said Ginny, breaking in on our ad-lib performance and rolling her eyes, "Are you going to come with us?"
      "I guess." said Charlotte hesitantly, "But I didn't bring anything to eat, and this line is a bit too long for everyone to wait for me."
      "Don't worry about it. I never bring food. It's a virtual smorgasbord. Just use your puppy dog eyes, and the food comes in mass quantities," said Ginny smiling.
      "Yeah, she just eats all our food," Chelsea translated.
      We all laughed. Sethe got her fries, and Cole said he'd meet us there after finding Katherine, Rebecca and Jason, other friends of ours. We rushed out into the fresh air and took off for the park.
      It was a beautiful, nearly summer Friday. The sun was shinning, the birds were singing. It seemed like a perfect day for a picnic. We sat down on the blanket that Ginny conveniently had in her locker. I honestly have no idea what she was doing with a huge blanket in her locker, but that's just Ginny so I don't really want to know. Locker clean outs with her are the most interesting experiences in the world. One year we found one of her Mother's good porcelain dishes that Ginny swears she never touched.
      We ate and talked, enjoying the day and the company.
      "Mr. Hathaway is such a Leo, it drives me absolutely bonkers!" exclaimed Chelsea.
      "I noticed," said Charlotte, "You rolled your eyes every time he over dramatized anything."
      I sat there listening to my friends conversation smiling. Then I sighed and said, "You know what would make this day perfect?"
      "What?" asked Nick.
      "If Deanna was here." I sighed again and everyone else agreed.
      Charlotte looked confused. She asked "Am I allowed to ask about that?"
      "Of course," said Chelsea, "Deanna Cormican is a friend of ours who moved to Beaver Bank. She's a Pisces who acts more like an Aries than you do. She drives me absolutely bonkers!"
      "Everything seems to drive you bonkers," Charlotte remarked.
      "HEY YOU GUYS!!!!!" The yell came from across the park. We turned to see, of all people, Deanna running towards us at top speed with her dark hair streaming out behind her.
      "Well speak of the devil," said Sethe slightly in shock.
      Chelsea looked to the sky and said, "Somebody turn the volume down please."
      Deanna bounded up to us and said quite simply, "Hi! Who's she?"
      "She, is Charlotte. She's new at our school. Deanna, why are you here?" asked Amy.
      "We have the day off school, so I decided to come visit."
      "We were talking about you just before you showed up." said Ginny with one eyebrow raised.
      "Yeah, Leda was saying how nice it would be if you were here," said Amy, "It's amazing how these things happen, isn't it?"
      "Well don't just stand there Deanna, sit down, you're making me feel short." Ginny demanded.
      "You are short Ginny," I stated.
      Ginny looked offended, then laughed.
      We offered Deanna some food and continued munching and talking a mile a minute. Another shout came from the other side of the park.
      "HEY PEOPLE!!" It came from Katherine Arquette who was running toward us like the world was going to end, followed by Jason Ryder, Jason's girlfriend Rebecca Tudor, and Jason's best friend Cole.
      Katherine came up panting and said, "Have you guys seen those weird lights? People are saying it's like police search lights or something. Hi Deanna. Why are you here? Who are you?" she asked looking at Charlotte.
      "My name is Charlotte. I'm new," Charlotte was a little taken back by Katherine's blunt, Sagittarian manner.
      "Oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you, I was just trying to find out who you were, because you're different."
      Katherine had no idea she was digging her hole deeper.
      "Open mouth, insert foot," mumbled Chelsea.
      "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to..."
      "That's okay. You're a Sagittarian, aren't you?" said Charlotte, breaking into a smile.
      "Hey, that's right. Cool, she fits right in with the rest of us," commented Cole, "I think... have I met you somewhere before?"
      "Besides seeing you in the cafeteria, I don't think so," said Charlotte.
      "Oh right, well, my name is Cole, and for future reference, I'm a Leo," said Cole taking a giant, sweeping bow, making his thick dark hair stand on end.
      "My name is Jason. I'm a Scorpio, and this is my Virgonion, neat freak girlfriend Rebecca."
      "I am not a neat freak!" said Rebecca hitting him on the shoulder.
      There was a small burst of laughter, then everyone fell silent.
      "Hey guys," I said, breaking the silence, "Did you notice something weird about the twelve of us?"
      "You mean, like, besides the fact that we put up with Chelsea?" said Deanna nastily.
      Chelsea stuck her tongue out at Deanna, and Deanna stuck hers back.
      "No that's not what I mean," I said giving the two of them the, 'Cut it out right now before I kill you both look. "There are twelve of us, and twelve Zodiac signs. Each of us is of a different sign. Isn't that weird?"
      "Awesome," said Rebecca.
      "Yeah, cool," said Ginny.
      "What are these lights you were talking about Katherine?" asked Chelsea completely changing the subject.
      "I don't know, I can't think of any reason for police search lights in the daytime."
      "Maybe they're alien spaceships, here to abduct all the teachers so that all the children of the world can go free of their awful sentence of learning," said Cole melodramatically.
      "No, I know. It's the Mother ship, come to take Ms. Freeman back to her home planet." said Ginny.
      We laughed and then we fell silent once more, all lost in our own thoughts of what it might be.
      In that moment, we were blinded in a bright light directly above us. I heard shrieks of sheer terror. Everything went black.

Chapter 2
Rebecca

      When I woke up after what must have been one crazy dream, I stretched luxuriously, and yawned, completely relaxed. I thought about the day to come.
      "Okay," I thought, "Time to get up Rebecca."
      I opened up my eyes and instead of being in my nice rectangular room, with all my posters, and alone, I was in a round steel room, along with eleven other beds, with eleven other people on them. I also noticed that I didn't have my pajamas on, I was wearing my clothes. There was a thin white sheet over top of me. This was not good.
      "What in the world is going on here?" I thought, "Could we have actually been abducted by aliens?"
      I sat up to see if I recognized any of the other people. They were all the people I had been with at the Fun Park. Chelsea, Ginny, Katherine, Nick, Cole, Jason, Leda, Deanna, Sethe, and Amy and that new Charlotte person.
      "Why us," I thought.
      I was the only one awake. I wished the others would wake up too, but I couldn't bring myself to say a word in that silent, grey place. I looked around for a possible escape. There were no windows, and it seemed like there wasn't any doors. Suddenly, two tall grey people (well, not people, aliens) walked through the wall!
      "Do not worry," said the taller one, "No harm shall come to you, or the other Twelve."
      "Yeah, and next you're going to tell me that this is for the good of my planet. Just before you drag me of to perform some weird experiments on me." I said in terror.
      "We will not harm you. You are the Twelve. We can not harm the Twelve," said the taller one.
      "Twelve? What are you talking about?"
      "All will be explained soon."
      I came to the sudden realization that they weren't moving their mouths, in fact, they didn't have any mouths. Come to think of it, I wasn't moving my mouth either. It was just like my thoughts were like being transmitted to them. Scary!
      Suddenly a high pitched shriek came from the other side of the room. Chelsea was awake.
      "Chelsea, shut-up and let me go back to sleep please," mumbled Deanna, "Wait a second, Chelsea, why are you in my room? No wait, this isn't my room, where am I?"
      Deanna's voice trembled. I wanted to run over to the other side of the room, but there were two weird lookin' alien dudes standing in my way.
      "Deanna, if this isn't your room, who's room is it?" said Sethe still mostly asleep.
      "I don't care who's room it is, I just want to go back to sleep," said Ginny, rolling over.
      "Oh yes you do care who's room this is Ginny," said Chelsea.
      "We will let the others wake up now," said the two aliens.
      They left me to deal with the ensuing chaos. Nice of them, wasn't it? Next to me, Cole started stirring
      "Ummm, go back to sleep Cole, uhhh, school's been canceled," I said softly, wanting him to stay asleep for as long as possible because the less people awake, the less I had to deal with.
      "Good, I didn't want to go, big test. Very bad," he mumbled before he went back to sleep.
      "Chelsea calm down, try not to wake up the others." I said as calmly as possible.
      "Who are they?" asked Sethe, "Why are we here?"
      "I don't know. They speak telepathically. They said that they won't hurt us, something about there being twelve of us? That doesn't stop me from worrying though," I explained.
      I got up to see who was awake. Chelsea was, well, not totally with it. Not that I could really blame her, she doesn't deal with things that are out of the ordinary very well. She was basically sitting on her bed type thing, staring into space, hugging her knees to her chest with a very blank look on her face. Ginny had rolled, or rather, flopped over and had gone back to sleep, typically. Sethe was just sitting there thinking rather calmly, most likely weighing the possibilities.
      When I asked her how she was, she looked at me and asked, "Rebecca, do you think it's possible that we are actually still asleep? Or maybe this is some kind of phsyco government conspiracy."
      "It could be anything. I'm really not sure. I wish I was though." I said with a sigh.
      "How are you staying so calm?!" asked Deanna who looked like she was about to hyperventilate, "We're all going to die!"
      "I'm calm because I have no other choice but to be calm. If I wasn't calm, all hell would break loose," I said as calmly as possible.
      As I was going around seeing who was awake, I noticed that there was something familiar about the order.
      "Of course," I thought, "It's the order of the Zodiac signs. Beginning with Aries (Charlotte) and finishing clockwise with Pisces (Deanna). Cool."
      Everyone who was awake got off our "beds", though they actually looked more like tables, much to my horror, and went to talk in the middle. Ginny slowly woke up, stretched and groggily made her way over towards us, her eyes still shut with sleep.
      "Morning," said Ginny with a yawn, "What's for breakfast?"
      "Ginny, do you have any idea where you are?" said Deanna.
      "No, not really. I haven't opened my eyes yet." she said.
      "Well open them. We've been abducted by aliens!" shrieked Chelsea.
      Her eyes flew open, "How? Why? Who? When? Comment? Pourquoi? Back up the truck! Aliens? Les Extraterrestres?"
      "Oh dear, she's resorted French." I muttered, "Calm down. They said that the wouldn't hurt us."
      "Abducted by aliens?" came a cry from the bed occupied by Leda, "How is that possible? And where are we?"
      "We don't really know Leda," I told her.
      "How can we not know where we are? Someone's got to know!" she was freaking slightly.
      "No, we don't know, no one does just DEAL WITH IT!!" I shouted. It felt really good at that point in time.
      Ginny, Chelsea, Deanna, Sethe, and Leda all turned to blink at me in surprise. I don't yell all that often. Okay, that's an understatement. I never yell.
      "What, like I'm the only one who's not allowed to have a little emotional outburst?" I asked.
      "It's not that, it's just, well, I don't think that I'll ever be able to hear properly again," said Chelsea, rubbing her ears.
      Ginny had finally come to her senses, and stopped yelling unanswerable questions in French and said, "Oh just great. Who's gonna wake up Charlotte, Katherine, and Amy? Best get 'em up before the guys. Who knows what they'll get up to."
      "My sentiments exactly. I'll wake up Amy, and Charlotte. You wake up Katherine," I said smiling evilly.
      "Super! Gotta hockey helmet?. You know what's going to happen when Katherine gets up," said Ginny, "I think you should wake Amy and Charlotte first so that I can call for back up."
      I smiled evilly again. Being Katherine's best friend, I had a good idea as to what would happen. Katherine does not like to be woken up under the best of cercumstances, and these were not the best cercumstances by any stretch of the imagination. I went over to where Amy and Charlotte were sleeping.
      "Amy, time to wake up." I said softly.
      She grunted and rolled over pulling the sheet over her head.
      "Amy, you really have to get up now. This is Rebecca. You have to get up now. We're somewhere.... different. Don't scream or anything," I prayed that we didn't have another Chelsea on our hands.
      "Do I have to get up too?" mumbled Charlotte.
      "Yes."
      I went back over to everyone else.
      "There, that wasn't so bad, was it," I said, "Now it's your turn Ginny."
      Ginny crept over towards Katherine, and the rest of us covered our ears in anticipation. Leda, Amy, and Charlotte came over to join us, then, it hit us.
      "WHAT? NO WAY! GO AWAY!!!"
      "Is it over?" asked Leda, tentatively removing her hands from her ears.
      "I think so," said Amy, as Ginny attempted to calm Katherine down.
      Ginny ran back over to us, holding her hand in pain. "I knew she wouldn't handle this well, but I didn't think she'd bite me! Why did I even agree to help. I should've stayed in bed."
      "Let me try," said Deanna.
      "Are you sure?" Leda said skeptically.
      "Why not?"
      "Okay, whatever it's your ear drum. Good luck," said Leda, "You'll need it."
      As Deanna walked towards the unknown, Katherine got up on her own accord. Go figure. She came bouncing over to us and said, "Hi! This place is way cool, don't you think."
      "Know what's even weirder? The fact that you just bit me!" exclaimed Ginny.
      "Well excccuusse me, but I was about to kiss Ben Mckinnon in my dream," said Katherine dreamily.
      "Who did you think I was, his girlfriend?" Ginny retorted.
      "No, you freaken... Hey, what time is it?"
      Katherine can be so random sometimes. Leda automatically looked down at her wrist to see her watch, but it wasn't there.
      "Sorry," she said, "I left mine at home today."
      "Me too," said Amy, "Sorry."
      "I've got mine," said Chelsea, extremely proud of herself, "It's...what the? Mickey is going nuts!"
      I looked at her watch. It was one of those Mickey Mouse watches. It looked like Mickey's arms were going to fly off at any second! Chelsea showed it to everyone.
      Amy said, "Maybe it's because we're not on earth anymore."
      "I supose. I wish there was a window or something. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic" said Ginny.
      "Should we wake up the guys now?" asked Deanna.
      "Probably. Rebecca and I should go wake up the guys." said Leda.
      We did that without much problem. Jason did not want to get up though. He's such a big baby when he first wakes up. We went over to where everyone else was standing.
      "It wasn't that bad. Cole thought that school was canceled though. I wonder why?" asked Leda.
      I laughed, "I, uh, told him that so that he would go back to sleep."
      "It's amazing that they managed to sleep through Chelsea's wailing," said Deanna.
      "You weren't exactly quiet yourself, Miss 'We're all going to die!'" Chelsea retorted.
      They stuck their tongues out at each other.
      "This is not the time, or the place." said Leda giving them both 'The Look'.
      The guys made their way over to us. Jason put his arm around me and made sure I was all right. He is so overprotective.
      "Now, what in the world is going on here?" asked Nick.
      "I'm not sure. All I know is, we've been abducted by aliens, they speak telepathically, they promised not to hurt us. I think it might have something to do with the fact that we are each a different sign of the Zodiac. They called us, 'The Twelve', " I explained, after momentarily detaching Jason from me.
      "What do these, supposed 'aliens' look like? And where are they now?" said Jason skeptically.
      "They look like the typical pop version of aliens, you know, big black eyes, big heads, grey skin, the works, and I'm not sure where they are now," I said.
      "Where's the door in this place?" asked Sethe.
      "They came in through that wall over there," I explained, pointing.
      "You mean, like on Star Trek?" asked Amy excitedly.
      "Oye vey," sighed Ginny.
      "No, I mean they, like, literally walked through the wall," I said.
      "How is that possible?" asked Jason as he made his way over to where I had pointed, "Is this the place?"
      I nodded.
      "Hmm, looks pretty solid to me," said Jason.
      "Let me see," said Chelsea as she walked straight into it, bumping her head rather violently on the wall.
      "Ouch!" she exclaimed, "That hurt!"
      "Go Chelsea!" said Deanna, "I don't think you had to run into it. Touching it would have been enough"
      We all laughed as Chelsea rubbed her head and pouted.
      "I hate all this waiting," said Charlotte, "Why do they always do this!"
      "What do you mean by 'always do this'. Has this happened to you before?" asked Leda looking surprised and concerned.
      "Well, I , um, sorta, I guess so," she stammered quietly.
      We all turned to look at her.
      "Well it started a long time ago. I don't really talk about it much."
      "Well, tell us all the details. Inquiring minds want to know," said Ginny.
      "I...I'm not really supposed to, well, I suppose it can't really hurt now. You'll find out soon enough, and it might as well be from me," sighed Charlotte
      She began her story, "I was taken for the first time when I was about ten. At first, they were speaking English, but not making any sense at all. Like they were saying 'I am not your alarm cat' and other really weird things."
      Chelsea, Ginny, Amy, and Sethe giggled
      "As time went on, and the abductions happened more often, they began making more sense. I guess that must have been because the more people they abducted, the more English they learned. This was the only proof I ever had,"
      She pulled down the left corner of her top, and barely visible was a small Aries sign tattooed into her skin.
      "You've got a tattoo? Cool! I want one!" exclaimed Ginny.
      "Ouch!" said Chelsea, screwing up her face.
      "It's not really a tatto, well not a normal one. They did it with this cool laser thing. My doctor thought that it was a really strange birthmark. I knew better though," she said almost bragging. Typical Aries.
      "They eventually told me the real purpose of my abductions," she continued, "I was somehow to gather together a group of eleven friends who were each a different Zodiac sign. Of course, I didn't have to find another Aries though, because I'm the only Aries they need."
      "What exactly do they need us for anyway?" asked Ginny, "And why did you came to Sackville of all places."
      "Well, we've been looking for the right people for a long time. When we found all of you, we thought it was perfect. It has to do with energy or something. They sent me there because they had to make sure that you were all at the same place at the same time, with no one else around. I didn't expect to get you all here on the first day. I was just lucky I guess."
      "Wait, why did they need us to be all in the same place. I mean, couldn't they have just taken us from our beds at night like all the other abductions you hear about?" asked Jason.
      "Well, yeah, they were going to do that, but see it takes so much power to both transport, and put someone in stasis at the same time. It took a lot less power to get you all at the same time."
      By now I could tell that Chelsea was getting slightly peeved off at Charlotte.
      "Wait, let me get this straight, you've been abducted by aliens since you were ten, you were sent to Sackville for the sole purpose of getting us abducted by these strange creatures for some unknown purpose, and you didn't tell us?!" exclaimed Chelsea.
      "And what do you think your reaction would have been if I had told you? Do you think I could have gotten you here at all? I don't think so. You would have screamed and probably ran into a wall like you did just now," retorted Charlotte.
      "Now that was just plain mean," Chelsea subsided into her characteristic pout.
      Leda was looking like she was ready to throttle Charlotte for insulting Chelsea. She's always been a bit of a den mother and totally protective of her friends.
      Instead she said, "Okay, that's enough. I know we're all tired and a little cranky and.... confused, but for now we've all got to work together. Charlotte, how long do you think we will have to wait here?"
      "I'm not really sure. It shouldn't be long now, I suspect. But please, promise me one thing, please," she pleaded.
      "What?" sighed Ginny and Sethe in unison.
      "When they do come, please don't freak out and scream and stuff. They really don't like that. A lot of people say that they thought that their abductors had no emotions That's not true. They feel emotions, but in a different way than we do."
      "Then why do they take people in the first place?"
asked Jason, "They must know that most people don't exactly enjoy being taken somewhere against their will and examined without explanation"
      "They don't do that kind of stuff though. It's the..."
      She was cut off by a noise from behind the wall, then the two aliens walked through the wall.

Chapter 3
Ginny

      Chelsea gasped, and suppressed a scream. I closed my eyes briefly, and Leda swallowed hard. I felt some stirring in the back of my mind. It was as if I was having a weird deja vu moment, but I knew that was totally insane. There was no way anything even remotely similar to this could have ever happened to me before. And yet...
      "It will all come clear, Taurian," said a voice in my head.
      "Hey. what are you doing in my head. It's private property," I said aloud in a protest of this intrusion of my mind.
      "We understand your discomfort with this method of communication, but this is the only way we can communicate," they responded monotonously in my head.
      "You bet it's uncomfortable," I thought angrily.
      "Now if you will all please follow us," The voice sounded differently this time, almost like listening to a phone call when another person in your house has a phone off the hook.
      I guessed that the others also heard what the voice said because they cautiously started towards the two grey dudes. One of them walked through the wall, Charlotte boldly followed. She had obviously done this before. Chelsea stopped just before the wall and reached out her hand timidly. She touched the wall and when it went through, she jerked her arm back. She looked behind at Leda. Leda gave her a nod. I told her I'd be right behind her. She closed her eyes and went through. I stood in front of the wall, took a deep breath, and plunged, hoping to the gods I didn't land on anything pointy.
      On the other side of the wall, was a grey hall. Leda came through after me, followed by everyone else, then lastly the other grey dude. The first one continued on down the hall, and we followed him. Or was it a her? Or did they even have genders at all? Who knew. I could see a wealth of scientific info just waiting to be plundered, but right now I had other things on my mind. We followed the first one down the hall to a dead end. Then we walked through that wall.
      "Hey," I thought while I was going through the wall, "This is pretty cool, I could get used to this," but I also felt a weird sensation like I wasn't going forward, almost like someone had pulled me sideways.
      On the other side, I was alone in another steel room. There was a bed/table type thing in the middle of the room.
      "Please, have a seat," said a voice in my head.
      I hesitated for a second, then figuring I didn't really have much to lose, I sat.
      "Where did you put them?" I asked.
      "Put whom?" said that annoying voice.
      "My friends! The other eleven that you've brutally abducted!"
      "They are all safe. Do not worry," said the voice ignoring my insults.
      "Okay, now what do you want from me in particular? Why did you single me out from the rest of the group?"
      "Because you are the second of the 'Twelve'. Now please, just relax, close your eyes, and open your mind."
      I did what I was told. In my mind, I saw a wall crumbling. Behind it came a flood of memories.
      I was sitting at home in front of the TV one night. I was watching some old, boring, black and white movie because I'm an insomniac and it was futile to try to get to sleep. I was about to get up and go get a drink of milk, when the TV turned itself off. All the power in the house had gone off. I looked out my window, and the street lamp was still on. So were a few lights in my neighbors houses. This was really weird. Suddenly, the TV screen flickered, then came back on. There was no picture, just a freaky, glowing orange screen. I stood in a sort of sleepy stupor watching it in amazement. There was a sudden surge of light from the screen, then everything went black.
      I had woken up in a room identical to the one I was in currently. There was a voice in my head telling me not to be afraid. A tall alien came in to the room.
      "You have been chosen as one of the twelve," said a voice in my head, "You shall not be harmed."
      The alien took me on a tour of the ship. It was pretty impressive. I asked a lot of stupid questions like 'How far can this baby get on 11$ worth of premium unleaded?' and 'Are there any inter galactic gas stations on the way to where ever we were going?' The alien guy didn't have any answers for me, but he did tell me that his name was Toemara. There were four other aliens on board, but one was very old, and expected to die soon.
      Toemara asked me lots of questions about Earth and our customs. He was also very intrigued about the stories I told him about my friends. He constantly asked for more information about them. Toemara taught me how to send my thoughts to one person, or an entire group, how to block them from other people, and how to walk through the walls. That was the best! He also told me that they were called the Yornicia. They were from a planet millions of light years away called Plarnery 2 in the galaxy of Andromida. They were sent here by their government three earth centuries ago to study us. The ship was never detected because of a protective shield encompassing them. A few years back, the Yornicians had discovered that they didn't have enough energy to get back to their planet. It had originally been powered by the Yornicians themselves, but since they arrived here, seven of the original twelve had died.
      At first they had tried to replace the others with humans, but our life forces weren't compatible. Next they tried breeding with humans, but that was like trying to get a dog and a cat to have babies. They'd have to call the half breeds Humicians or Yornumans! They tried having babies of their own, but for some reason or another, they had all become sterile. They had finally started experimenting with the idea of using the life forces of humans alone. It took them a very long time to discover a way to get the right kind of energy. At last, a year ago, they figured out what they needed, all they needed now was to get it. Enter us, the Twelve.
      What they discovered is that each human has a certain life force governed by the Zodiac, and that each Zodiac gives off a different type of energy and they needed all twelve types to power their ship. I was informed that I would be needed soon to help power their ship to get home once they managed to find the rest of the people they needed. That's my good deed for the century.
      At first I was nervous that they would need me for the whole journey to Andromeda, and that I would never see my home again, but Isshudo (a shorter Yornician) soon explained that they only needed us to power up their ship. I got a small mark on my left shoulder in the shape of a Taurus sign with a laser. It didn't hurt at all and it looked pretty professional.
      Just before I left, I was asked whether or not I thought I should remember what happened. I told them, no way, I would never be able to keep this a secret. They took my taurus mark and then everything went fuzzy.
      I opened my eyes, "Toemara, how come I can remember it all now?"
      "Because you were starting to remember on your own. We felt it would be better for you to remember it here, all at once, then somewhere else with your friends," he explained.
      "Gotcha. All my friends and I are here to help you get home," I felt a tingling on my shoulder, there was my Taurian sign. I smiled, quite pleased at the art work, then asked, "Do they know yet?"
      "They already knew the way you did," he explained, "Do you think that you are ready to go back?"
      "Yeah, I guess I'm ready," I said as I walked towards the wall, "Boy, Oprah would really dig my story. I wonder how much she'd pay?"

Chapter 4
Chelsea

      When I came through to the other side of the wall, I turned to see if Ginny was behind me. She wasn't. Everyone else came through, but not Ginny.
      "Where's Ginny?!" I demanded.
      "Yeah, where is she? What have you done with her?" exclaimed Leda, looking like she was going to spontaneously combust or something, "If you've hurt her I swear I'll kill you all!"
      "No need for alarm. You are talking about the Taurian? She is simply in a different room for the moment. She will return shortly," said the short alien that was behind us.
      The alien went through the wall in front of us. I was totally pissed off at the darn thing so I ran after it. Unfortunately, I think he closed the wall behind himself, so I ran right into the wall. Again.
      "Ow! That hurt more than the first time! They should have a sign or something saying, 'This wall is closed.'," I said, rubbing my sore forehead.
      Behind me, Deanna started snickering, "Go Chelsea! That's twice you've oh so brilliantly ran into a wall."
      "That's not funny. Leedaa, Deanna's being meeeean!" I whined. Don't get me wrong, Deanna and I are really good friends, but we get a kick out of teasing each other. Besides the fact that it's really fun to see how mad Leda will get. But when it really counts, Deanna sticks up for me.
      Leda gave us both 'The Look' and informed us that we were acting like four year olds. That's pretty much what she always does when Deanna starts teasing me and I start whining.
      "When are going to eat?" asked Rebecca, rubbing her stomach "I'm really getting hungry."
      "Didn't you eat lunch today?" asked Nick.       "Yes, but that seems like hours ago. I wonder what time it is."
      "Who knows. One thing's for sure, we're not going to see that movie in French class," said Amy sadly, "I was really looking forward to seeing it."
      "Me too," I said, "Leda finally remembers to bring it and look what happens. Figures."
      "Charlotte," said Leda suddenly, "Do you think it's possible that we've all been abducted before, not just you?" Leave it to Leda for out of the blue comments. We're talking about food and movies and she brings in the scary stuff again.
      "I guess it's possible. I never went in very many other rooms, and I never really thought to ask about other abductees," said Charlotte.
      "Wait, you never got a chance to finish telling us exactly why we're needed here," stated Jason.
      "Oh right, sorry about that. As I was saying.." She stopped as if someone was talking to her and it looked as if she were answering in her head.
      "Who are you talking to?" I asked, "It's driving me nuts!"
      "Not a far drive," muttered Deanna.
      I shoved Deanna. Leda looked exasperated. I tried to look sorry, but I really wasn't.
      "This is a bit annoying, and I'm not talking about tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee over here," muttered Leda, indicating us.
      "Seriously," muttered Sethe. "What was that all about, Charlotte?"
      "Well, it seems that I'm not supposed to tell you what's going on now. Apparently they have something else in mind. Oh, Ginny's on her way back here. She should be here soon."
      As if those had been the cue to Ginny's entrance on stage, Ginny came through the wall.
      "Hi all! I'm back. Chelsea, are you okay?" she asked me, cheerfully.
      "I resent the fact that you think I'm not capable of handling this," I pouted, "I'm insulted."
      "What happened to you? Where did you go? Are you okay?" asked Katherine frantically.
      "I went to Florida, where else would I go?" she said sarcastically, "I was in a different room of the ship, and yes, I'm fine. There's really nothing to be afraid of. The Yornicians are a cool bunch,."
      Ginny has a tendency to be really strange sometimes. No, not sometimes, most of the time. But we like her. She keeps life interesting. Not that we needed more interesting lives at this point.
      "Yornician?" asked Nick, "I remember that name from somewhere. Where was it?"
      "Probably here," said Ginny matter-of-factly.
      "Here?" we chorused, "How is that possible?"
      "Nope, top secret. I'll let you find out for yourself," she paused, "Nick, you're next. I'll take you to the room."
      "Ginny, you aren't getting any crazy ideas are you? Cause if you are, just wipe them away right now," said Leda protectively.
      "Me? Crazy? Nooo. A little eccentric, yeah," said Ginny.
      "Next for what? Am I going to be assassinated or what?" asked Nick confusedly.
      "No silly. Come on it's cool," Ginny grabbed his hand and pulled him through the wall.
      We all stared after them in dismay.
      "Now that was only a tad weird," I said, wide eyed, "How'd she do that?"
      "This is Ginny. Don't ask questions," said Sethe.
      "Do you have any idea what's going on Charlotte?" asked Leda.
      "Yes, but I'm not allowed to tell you. All I can say is that nothing bad is going to happen, and that they'll be back soon," she said quietly.
      "I'm worried," said Rebecca, "There has to be a pattern here. Now almost everything that has happened to us today had something to do with the Zodiac. The beds were in order, Charlotte has an Aries sign branded on her shoulder, we are each a different sign, and because of that we've been taken here for some unknown reason that has something to do with energy. So now, Ginny left, then came back knowing the name of these aliens, then ran off with Nick to some unknown room that we can't get to, but she can."
      "You sure are a Virgo," said Charlotte.
      "Yes, I am," said Rebecca.
      "Wait. In the Zodiac, Taurus is right before Gemini!" exclaimed Amy.
      "Right! And after that comes, Cancer," I said feeling pleased at myself, then I looked at Leda, "Uh-oh."
      "Yeah, Uh-oh is right. I'm not sure I want to do this anymore," said Leda looking terrified.
      "What, and you wanted to do this before?" asked Katherine.
      "Don't be silly. You'll soon see that you were all making a big deal out of nothing. Now relax and wait. There is seriously nothing to worry about," said Charlotte soothingly.
     Something about Charlotte's manner was really getting to me. I really hate know-it-all's, especially when they won't share valuable information with the rest of the world. Contrary to what I thought when I first met her, Charlotte was most definitly an Aries, moon not withstanding. And the way she was lording the fact that she knew more than us over our heads made me really angry. Plus, I was worried about what was soon going to happen to Leda so I really wanted to lash out.
     "You know, I am getting sick and tired of all this secrecy crap!" I shouted at Charlotte, "What is going on here? Why are we here? Who are you really? Why can Ginny go through walls but we can't? And what the heck is going on in that stupid room that we can't get to?"
     I was turning red and getting a little close to tears like I always do when I'm really angry.
      "If you would just calm down for a second and show one ounce of patience rather than flying off the handle at me, maybe you would learn the answers to your questions. I'm not some squeaky voiced blabbermouth who doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut. I've been told not to tell you guys anything, so I won't. End of discussion," Charlotte retorted. I was taking a severe dislike to her and by the stormy looks on my friends' faces, I wasn't the only one.
      "Now you just listen here," said Deanna sounding really angry, as she stepped between Charlotte and me, "I don't know who you think you are, but if you think this is a good way to make friends, you're totally wrong! Oh wait, I forgot. You weren't trying to make friends with us, you were trying to lure us all together so that we could be abducted by aliens!"
      "That's not fair!" Charlotte cried, looking shocked and hurt, "I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, really! And I did want to be friends with all you guys too. Not just to lure you all together. I mean, you're just all so nice and... different from everyone else. You're not snobby or stuck up. You are who you are and don't seem to care what anyone else thinks. Plus, I guess I see how close you all are, and how you all stick up for one another. It's really unique. I do want to tell you what's going on. I really and truly do. But I can't. I promised. I'm sorry. But I can tell you that there really isn't anything to be worried about."
    Leda looked a bit unconvinced, and I had my doubts too.
     "But how can you expect us to trust you? Or to trust them?" asked Leda, echoing my own thoughts.
     "I don't know. There's no way I can really convince you," she replied.
     Sethe sighed, "Well, we really don't have much of a choice, do we? I mean, what else can we do? We can't run away, we have no way out of this room."
     "Yeah," Katherine agreed, "And fighting about it really isn't going to help things either."
     "You sound like Leda!" I exclaimed, laughing. Leda laughed feebley. She was looking at the wall that Ginny had disappeared through with trepidation.
     "I promise you, there's nothing to be worried about," said Charlotte.
      "That's right," said Ginny as she came back through the wall, "There is absolutely nothing to worry about, trust me. Now Leda and Cole, you two have to go at the same time, because this is taking way too long, and they don't have any time to spare."
      She grabbed Leda and Cole and went back through the wall. Now it was my turn to feel scared. I knew Leda was scared and wished that we could go where ever she was going together. We'd been friends since first grade and she's always stuck up for me. I really had no idea what to expect, but I decided I didn't want to do it, whatever "it" was.

Chapter 5
Cole

      I came through to the other side of the wall behind Ginny, and beside Leda. Leda looked like she was about to have a nervous break down, which is unusual for Leda.
      "Leda, are you okay? You don't normally get this nervous for anything," said Ginny, trying to make her feel better.
      "Yeah Leda, you don't normally get this nervous, even before a show," I said, concerned. I've known Leda since we were kids and she rarely gets nervous.
      "I know, but for those things I know what to expect, and I've done them before! I haven't done this before!" said Leda, nearly in tears.
      "Shhh, it's okay. Everything's going to be all right. I won't let them hurt you. I promise," I said, while giving her a reassuring hug.
      "And I promise that they won't do anything that would make Cole need to protect you," said Ginny, then to the air she said, "Can I watch? I've got nothing better to do."
      She smiled at the unheard response.
      "I'll stay with you if it will make you feel better. I'll just go sit in the corner. I'll be right here the entire time. Don't worry."
      Ginny went and sat down. In my head, a voice told me to sit down on the bed in the middle of the room. Leda and I both headed for it, so I guess she heard it too. We sat down together.
      "Close your eyes and relax," said the voice.
      I looked at Leda to make sure she was okay. She looked like she was holding up, so I obeyed. In my mind, I saw an image of a big fire, burning down some fences. As they burned, I remembered everything that I had forgotten by choice.
      I had been at home in my room, trying to sleep when I was taken. My clock at the foot of my bed had mysteriously begun flashing. Then suddenly I woke up in the same room that I was in now. Me being as knowledgeable as I am as far as alien abductions go, I had no idea where I was. I had been treated extremely well, which I found very strange because according to what little I knew from late night TV, most of the survivors talk of heartless, cruel aliens, that perform awful experiments that, when remembered, leave a person scarred for life.
      This was nothing at all like that. They explained their quest to find the right kind of power to get them back to the Andromeda System. I told them that I would be glad to help them, and that I would do what I could. One of them, Toemara, his name was, surprised me by knowing my friends Ginny, Leda, and Nick. I was given the sign of Leo lasered into my right shoulder. When it was time to go, they gave me a choice to remember, or to forget. I chose to forget, and my symbol was taken away.
      I opened my eyes to see Leda looking at me and smiling.
      "So I was right," she said, "We have all been taken before. We just chose not to remember."
      "I guess so," I agreed, "Everything doesn't seem so scary now."
      "I really was making a big deal over nothing, wasn't I? I'm sorry Ginny!" she called over to the corner where Ginny was still sitting.       "It's okay, I felt the same way before I remembered too," she called back, "Now let's go back to the other room."
      The three of us started back to see how the rest of our group was doing.
      "Look," I said to Ginny, "I remember how to do this."
      I put my hand through the wall laughing heartily.
      "Yeah, and I remember how to do this," said Leda.
      She looked at Ginny and I. In my head I heard, "I...ice...especially!"
      "Love, cream, chocolate?" said Ginny, very confused, "You make my brain sore you know."
      I laughed and explained that Leda had said "I love ice cream especially chocolate" and had alternated words between us. We all laughed and went back into the other room.
      On the other side of the wall, Chelsea was pacing the room, jumping up and down, whining in her high pitched voice and being generally annoying. I saw that Rebecca, Sethe, and Jason had left.
      "How come Rebecca, Sethe, and Jason all left at the same time?" I asked.
      "Because Jason put up this big fuss about being away from Rebecca," answered Amy.
      "Ah I see. He is so over protective of her," said Leda, rolling her eyes.
      "Look who's talking!" exclaimed Chelsea.
      Leda laughed, "I know, I know. Hey, I wonder if anyone on earth noticed that we're gone yet?"
      "Yeah. It must be at least 3:00 by now," I said.
      "Well there goes seeing that movie," said Ginny.
      "Oh! And I was really looking forward to seeing that, too," pouted Chelsea.
      "No, but seriously. Do you think that anyone misses us by now?" I asked.
      "If it's after school, then definitely. I mean, someone must have missed us at school this afternoon," said Charlotte.
      "Yeah I can just see my Dad now," mocked Chelsea, "He'll be on the phone with Deanna's Mom and saying 'It's all that Ginny's fault. I never trusted her in the first place. She was a bad influence on my Chelsea from the first day they met."
      She stuck her finger in the air just like her father does to mark a point in a perfect imitation of her father.
      "Hey, that reminds me," said Leda, "Chelsea, you and Katherine are next,"
      I watched as Leda coaxed Chelsea and Katherine through the wall. Chelsea kept asking if Leda was sure she knew what she was doing. After they left, Nick came back through the wall.
      "Phew," he said, "Now that took some convincing."
      "I can imagine," I said.
      I noticed that Deanna looked kind of lonely so I went over to her.
      "Hey Deanna. How goes it in the land of Beaver Bank?"
      "Okay, I guess. I really miss hanging out with you guys though."
      "I bet you wish you hadn't been with us today though," said Amy, coming over to join us.
      "Are you kidding? And miss all the excitement! No way!" she replied.
      "I'm glad you said that Deanna," said Ginny, "I was beginning to think that you would go insane with all this waiting, especially since almost everyone knows what's going on, except you and Amy. I know you hate guessing games."
      "Ginny, all this waiting can't drive me insane," said Deanna, "I already am insane."
      Just then, Rebecca, Sethe, and Jason returned. They were in much better spirits then when we had left.
      "Well it's your turn now, you two," I said to Deanna and Amy, "You're the last ones. I'll be so happy when this is over."
      "You're telling me," said Leda as she came back through the wall with Chelsea and Katherine behind her, "Chelsea was being so annoying about it."
      "Hey!" Chelsea exclaimed.
      "You weren't exactly Miss. Placid yourself as I recall," said Ginny.
      "Yeah, but I had good reason to be," she retorted.
      "And Chelsea didn't?" said Ginny raising one eye brow, "Nice logic."
      "Yeah, but...oh fine," said Leda.
      For once it was Leda's turn to pout. Chelsea gave the wall behind her a funny look, then giggled in that high pitched way of hers. She put her hand on the wall, then through it. She went on like this for a while making the wall solid then not solid, giggling all the while.
      "You know I really feel like I should be doing something right now," said Leda, trying to ignore Chelsea's silliness.
      "Same here," said Ginny looking perplexed.
      "Oh of course! Today's Friday isn't it? We were supposed to have a cheerleading practice after school," Leda exclaimed, "They're going to be pissed at us."
      "Oh drat," said Seth, sarcastically, "I don't get to be chucked up in the air and risk breaking my neck, just because I'm not as tall as the rest of you."
      "Hey, if I could switch with you, I would. It's so much less work," said Chelsea, teasingly.
      I jabbed Nick in the ribs, "Who would have thought these girls would ever be cheerleaders. Before you know it they'll be walking around in make-up and high-heels, acting like they have nothing but air between their ears."
      "Yeah. And then they'll want to date the football guys and we'll get the boot," he replied.
      "They'll be way too cool to hang with us lowly plebians."
      "Oh woe is me."
      We collapsed into huge fake sobs. The girls turned to watch our antics with amused looks. When Nick and I get going, there is no end to the melodrama.
      "Oh get over it. We're just in cheerleading to look up the other girls' skirts and you know it," said Katherine.
      Well, that put a complete stop to our dramatics pretty effectively. The girls all looked very pleased with themselves and turned back away from us, giggling like they always do when they one up us.
      "Amy, and Deanna, it's your turn," said Seth as she walked with them through the wall, pointedly ignoring the two of us.
      "The last ones," I thought, "Now at last we can speak freely."

Chapter 6
Deanna

      As Sethe took us through the wall, along with Amy, I had the feeling that I had done it many times before, on my own. I pushed that thought right out of my mind though. I could never had done this before.
      "Do not be too sure about that," said a voice in my head.
      "What? Who was that?" I exclaimed.
      "Didn't Rebecca tell you that the Yornicians speak telepathically?" said Sethe.
      "Oh," I said, "Right, I forgot."
      "Do you want me to stay with you guys?" asked Sethe.
      "No thanks," replied Amy.
      "Yeah, we'll be fine," I said.
      "Are you sure? 'Cause I don't mind staying," said Sethe.
      "We'll be okay," I said.
      "Okay then. See ya later," she started through the wall when Amy stopped her.
      "Wait," she called, "How will we find our way back?"
      "You'll see soon enough," she said mysteriously. Then she walked through the wall.
      "Sit down," said a voice in my head. It sounded strangely tired, as if it was sick of doing this. Well of course, that made sense he had probably already done this about a zillion times.
      "Something like that," said the voice.
      Amy and I both sat down on the bed/table type thing in the center of the room. The voice in my head told me to close my eyes and relax. So, I did.
      In my mind, I saw a picture of a big dam breaking, the water thundered down, and with the water came memories that I had forgotten.
      I had been asleep in my room at my old house, when a noise outside my window woke me up. I opened my eyes, but didn't move a muscle. Suddenly, there was brilliant flash of light and music as my radio turned itself on. There was another flash of light from my window, and then everything went black. I woke up in a small, square, steel, room. There was an alien looking down at me. Her name was Isshudo.
      I opened my eyes. I remembered everything that had happened! About how to speak telepathically, how to walk through walls, everything! I also remembered why the Yornicians were stuck here, and I remembered my promise to help them when they needed it.
      "I remember," I thought.
      "I know," said Toemara.
      "Where's Isshudo?" I asked.
      "She is attempting to make some earth food."
      "Oh. I hope she's a good cook, I'm starving."
      "Me too," said Amy, "Let's go back to the others."
      "Okay."
      We went back through the wall.
      On the other side, Chelsea was laughing like a hyena. Some things never change.
      "Hey! I heard that! You are soooo meeaan!" shrieked Chelsea.
      "Chelsea, would you please lower the decibel?" scowled Leda.
      "Fine," she pouted, "Hey Deanna, watch this. Inside the wall, outside the wall. I'm not, hitting my, head. Inside, outside."
      "Small things amuse small minds," said Ginny, shaking her head.
      As often happens with large groups, people were standing around in smaller groups. If it weren't for the unusual circumstances, I would have sworn we were at some sort of party.
      "I'm bored!" Chelsea whined, "Why can't we do something?"       "The only thing I feel like doing is eating," I said, "I'm starving! Toemara told me that Isshudo is trying her hand at cooking. I have no idea if it'll taste good or not, but right now, I don't really care."
      "I can vouch for that one," said Rebecca holding her stomach.
      "Hey Charlotte, we all match now," said Ginny, calling across the room triumphantly as she revealed her Taurus mark, "Only mine's neater."
      "Cool! So Leda was right after all. You all were abducted before," said Charlotte smiling.
      "Yup," I said, "Now we remember everything about our abductions, and why the Yornicians need us."
      "Great. Finally we can talk about it," said Jason.
      "When are we going to eat? I've never eaten here before, because it was night when I was taken, so I wasn't all that hungry," said Rebecca.
      "You mean you don't eat at night," said Jason sarcastically, "It's a miracle!"
      Rebecca shoved Jason playfully.
      "Time for supper," said Isshudo.
      "Okay," we replied in unison.
      "Where are you?" asked Sethe.
      "Two rooms on your right," she replied.
      We all went through the wall on our right. Chelsea made a big deal of the fact that she could now go through without hitting her head.She can be such a showoff, but I like her anyway.
      "I hope Isshudo's a good cook," Leda said to me.
      "Ditto," I said.
      We came into a room that I had never been in before. The walls were steel like all the other walls in this place, but there was a long table in the middle of the room with six chairs on either side of it. The wall to our right was a half wall, with a counter. Behind it was a make shift kitchen. I had to laugh at just how hard Isshudo was trying. She had a big white chef's hat on, and an apron that said "Kiss the Cook". She looked like one of the chef's on TV. In fact, that's probably where she got the idea of what a chef should look like.
      "What's for supper, Chef Isshudo?" I asked smiling.
      "Something you call 'Macaroni and Cheese'," she said slowly.
      "Great! I love Macaroni and Cheese!" exclaimed Leda.
      "You love everything eatable Leda," said Chelsea.
      "So, is there something wrong with liking food?" she retorted.
      "Yeah," chimed in Rebecca and I, defending Leda because all three of us have large appetites, and will eat anything.
      "I give up! I'm surrounded!" she exclaimed, not being the biggest eater around. She's terribly picky as well.
      We all sat down as Isshudo brought over steaming bowls of Macaroni and Cheese. I thanked Isshudo as she put down a bowl. It looked pretty normal to me, so I took a small bite. It tasted like... well, to be honest, I've tasted better macaroni and cheese before, but considering that this was probably the first earth food ever attempted here and it wasn't mine, (I make the best Macaroni and Cheese going,) it was pretty good.
      "This is really good," I said, "How did you make it?"
      "I followed the directions on the box," she replied, confused that I would ask.
      "No, I mean, how did you get the box, and the pot, and water and everything to make it with?"
      "Oh, that is what you wanted to know. That is easy. We simply found out what one of the favorite Earth foods were, and got everything from a .... grocery store," she explained, stumbling over the last words.
      "Neat," said Nick, "This macaroni is terrific! It's better than the stuff my mom makes. That's not that hard to do though. My mom's tastes like little pieces of rubber covered in glue."
      "How would you know what rubber and glue tastes like?" asked Katherine.
      "Because my sister made me eat glue once, and almost everyone knows what rubber tastes like," he explained matter-of-factly.
      "Sethe," asked Chelsea, "What classes are you guys missing?"
      "Math, and French," she replied, "It's a good thing too, 'cause I didn't have my French test signed. Mme. Theriault would have bitten my head off."
      "Your teacher is a cannibal?" asked Isshudo, shocked.
      "No, it's just an expression," explained Leda, laughing.
      "That is good. I would not like for you to lose your head," said Isshudo.
      I finished my macaroni and cheese. It left a slight after taste in my mouth that I didn't recognize. It was slightly sour, and yet a bit like some kind of vegetable. I couldn't really identify it. I decided to ask Isshudo what it was.
      "What's this after taste?"
      "It is nothing much. Just a bit of a vegetable called Arellano that I added. It is very similar to your Earth carrots," she explained.
      "Eww gross! I ate carrots? Why didn't you tell me?" squeaked Chelsea.
      "You didn't complain about them when you were wolfing it down, did you?" I said.
      "Yeah but... but... oh fine" Chelsea subsided into a pout.
      Everyone else had also finished eating by now except Jason, and Charlotte.
      "How do you eat?" Amy asked Isshudo, "I mean you don't really have any mouths, so..."
      "We do not eat in the human sense of the word. We absorb the energy from other things, mostly plants. Sometimes a small amount of energy from your sun is enough to sustain us for a few days. At special occasions on Plarnery 2, we would make a great feast of food similar to yours, and absorb it," she explained.
      "Cool," said Ginny.
      "Yeah," I said in awe.
      Charlotte and Jason had finally finished, so Isshudo cleared off the table. She told us that Toemara was waiting for us, in a room three rooms to the right, to explain how we were to help them.
      "Thank-you!" we chorused.
      "The food was wonderful," said Amy.
      "Even if it did have carrots in it," said Chelsea.
      "It tasted much better than glue and rubber," said Nick.
      "And that's definitely a good thing," said Leda.
      "That's for sure," I said.
      "You are very welcome," said Isshudo, "Now do not keep Toemara waiting much longer."
      We said good bye and went through the wall.
      On the other side was a big room with hundreds of TV's in it. On the TV's were various news and entertainment stations from all over the Earth. Some of them were blank, and others had the standard test pattern stripes on them. The rest were filled with images and people talking in least dozen different languages.
      On one of them, I recognized the news anchor from the nightly news that my mother watches at six.
      "It's six o'clock already!" I exclaimed.
      "Shh!" said Sethe, "I want to hear this."
      She was standing in front of a screen with a different anchor on it. Chelsea and Ginny found a screen with Much Music on it. They were dancing to whatever video they were showing.
      "Hey guys!" I exclaimed, "They're talking about the recent abductions of little kids in Canada. Do you think that people think that we've been abducted?"
      "Ring ring, pick up the clue phone! Considering the fact that we pretty much have been abducted, they would be right," said Ginny.
      "No, that's not what I meant," I muttered through my teeth, "I meant that they might think that we were abducted by some strange guy in a car to be taken to Toronto and forced to become prostitutes or something!"
      Everyone looked a little uneasy at that.
      "I wonder," said Ginny slowly.
      "What?" we all asked in perfect unison.
      "Man did that ever sound planned," laughed Cole.
      "No, but seriously, what do you wonder?" asked Sethe.
      "Careful Sethe, that's uncharted territory your treading on," said Leda in a low mysterious, sarcastic voice.
      Ginny raised an eye brow at Leda and continued, "I was just thinking about how I heard on the radio this morning that twelve more kids were abducted from Chester. And I was also thinking about how strange it is that lately kids around our age from all over the world, have been disappearing by the dozens, literally. And now here we are, all twelve of us, aboard an alien space craft."
      "That is strange, isn't it? I wonder if they were all abducted like us. By the same aliens maybe," said Nick looking a tad worried.
      "It could be just a coincidence. I mean, the police don't seem to think the abductions are related in any way," I said.
      "Deanna's right. I don't think there's anything to worry about. If the Yornicians were going to hurt us or anything, they probably would have done it before now. Right?" said Jason.
      "Right. I agree with Jason. I don't think there's anything to worry about. It's probably just a coincidence," said Charlotte, as if she was trying to convince herself as well as everyone else.
      "Still, I wonder what everyone at home thinks happened to us," I said slowly, "I mean, we're pretty sure we're all right, but they have no idea what's going on. It must be hard on them."
      "Yeah, I hope they aren't taking it too hard," said Katherine.
      "We're probably going to be in big trouble when we get back," said Rebecca.
      "Well, maybe they'll be so relieved to see us again, they won't be mad at us," said Leda.
      "I hope you're right," I said.
      "Um, guys, we're supposed to be going to see Toemara, remember?" said Ginny.
      "Oops," we said.
      The other side of the room was just a plain room with not much in it, so we continued through without stopping to the next room, where we would finally get some answers, I hoped.

Chapter 7
Katherine

     There, on the other side of the wall, was Toemara. He was standing in a large room with a cylinder type thing coming up from the floor in the center. It was about two feet high, and about a foot across with black diamonds painted on it. From the inside, I could see a faint light glowing from it. There were I wondered what in the world it could be for.
      "It is what powers our ship," answered Toemara, surprising me. I don't think I'll ever get used to people answering questions I don't say out loud.
      "It looks like it's going to go out," said Amy.
      "You are correct. We have only enough power to keep life support and the artificial gravitational device going for a few weeks. If you were not here to help us now, we would die within this earth month."
      "It's a good thing we're here then," said Ginny.
      "That's for sure," I said.
      "How can we help," asked Chelsea.
      "It is not really all that easy to explain. As we have previously informed you, we came here from our home planet centuries ago. We originally did not foresee the problem of loosing any of the members of this crew. We Yornicians have a life span of double that of a human. When the first, Ticota, died, it came as quite a shock to us. We had no idea how to power our ship without her. We experimented for a while with various combinations of human energy, and our energy, but nothing worked. Eventually, we found the right kind of energy in you twelve. We were actually quite surprised to learn how you humans get your energy from the planets in your solar system, and even more surprised to find that most humans are not aware of this. You twelve are our last hope. If this does not work, we may not get another chance."
      I think I understood what Toemara meant about getting our energy from the planets in our solar system. When I became interested in astrology, someone explained to me that each planet has a certain kind of energy associated with it. It's not just New Age mumbo jumbo, or horoscope stuff either, it's tangable. We notice the gravitational pull from the sun and the moon a whole lot, but the other planets pull on the earth too. And we on the earth are effected by the other planets as much as the earth is. After all, we're all made up of the same stuff. So when we're born, the possition of each of those planets has some sort of an effect on our personality. The biggest influence being where the sun is. That's our Zodiac sign that everyone always goes on about. But the other planets, and the moon, they shape us too, just less so than our sun sign.
      "In six of you, the power is stronger than in the other six but less focused. I have no idea why. That is also true for the twelve Yornicia that were on this ship. It balances out the power supply somehow."       "Which of us are the stronger six?" I asked.
      "Cancer, Capricorn, Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Libra," he replied.
      The six of them looked at each other with raised eyebrows and said, "Cool."
      "So what exactly do we have to do?" asked Nick.
      "It is really quite simple actually. The six that I mentioned sit in a circle, and the other six each take your place standing behind them, forming an outer circle. You all imagine that your energy is being released from the mark on your left shoulder," explained Toemara.
      "Um, will we, like, be okay after this? I mean, we won't, like, die from this or anything, will we?" asked Sethe.
      "No, not at all. We have fixed that problem. It may take one day off of your projected life span, but you will not even notice that," answered Toemara.
      "Okay," said Sethe.
      The six that Toemara had mentioned sat down, cross-legged in a circle around the cylinder. I stood between Sethe and Charlotte. Standing next to me was Cole. He gave me a reassuring smile. Next to Cole was Nick, then Jason. Jason and Rebecca were standing next to each other, holding hands. On the other side of Rebecca and next to me was Amy.
      "Focus your energy on the center of the cylinder," Toemara said.
      I closed my eyes and tried to focus. It was really hard because really weird thoughts kept popping into my head. I tried to push them away, but it wasn't working.
      "Just relax," said Toemara, obviously sensing my thoughts.
      I tried harder to concentrate but, as usual, trying harder just made things worse. I opened my eyes in defeat. It seemed like no one else was having much luck ether because most of them ether had their eyes opened, or were sort of peeking out behind closed eyes to see how everyone else was doing.
      "This is just not working!" said Jason in frustration.
      "I just can't concentrate!" I exclaimed.
      "I'm not so sure I want to do this anymore," said Sethe.
      Everyone else muttered in agreement.
      "Perhaps this is the wrong way to go about this," said Toemara pensively, "The power also comes from your tight friendship. Perhaps if you concentrate on that."
      We closed our eyes again to give it another go. I thought of each of the others in turn. Chelsea, Ginny, Cole, Deanna. I continuously brushed thoughts with the others as they did pretty much the same thing. It was a really weird feeling. I thought about Leda and I felt her block me out coldly.
      "Stop it!" she exclaimed suddenly, "Stop intruding on me!"
      I opened my eyes and looked at Leda, she looked really ticked.
      "All I did was think about you, I didn't mean to intrude," I said apologetically.
      "Leda, stop being so touchy! Geeze, you'd think someone was trying to kill you or something," said Chelsea.
      "I'm sorry I blew up at you Katherine," said Leda ignoring Chelsea.
      "This really isn't working out the way it's supposed to, is it," said Amy.
      "No, not exactly," said Toemara, "I can not figure out why it is not working correctly."
      "Maybe we're just trying too hard," suggested Ginny.
      "I know I am," said Rebecca.
      "Same here," I said.
      "Let's try again," said Sethe.
      "Yeah, but this time, try not to push Leda the wrong way," said Deanna.
      We all closed our eyes and tried again. This time, I just totally let go. It was very relaxing, but it wasn't getting us any where. To the left of me, I heard a loud rumbling noise. My eyes flew open, and there was Ginny, her head flopped over, and snoring up a storm. Charlotte hit Ginny.
      "Hey! What did you do that for?" she exclaimed.
      "You were snoring, that's why!" said Charlotte, "And it was giving me a headache."
      "Well excuse me," said.
      "So much for a tight friendship," I muttered.
      "Um, maybe that's the key to how we do this. I mean, maybe we're trying to hard to do this separately, we're going back into ourselves to try do this instead of working together as a group," said Cole.
      "You're right. Even when we we're trying to, like, think of our friendship, we're doing it separately," said Sethe.
      "Yeah, but how do we do it any other way?" asked Rebecca.
      "Maybe rather than just mentally touching, we should be physically touching," said Nick.
      Everyone gave him a "What do you mean by that?" look.
      "I meant like holding hands or something!" he exclaimed, realizing what we were thinking.
      "That sounds like a good idea," I said.
      "It's worth a shot," said Ginny.
      I grabbed Cole and Amy's hands. Everyone else grabbed the hands of the people next to them so that we now had two complete circle. I closed my eyes again. Again I let go completely, but I felt that this wasn't quite working though, so I did the only thing I could think of that I felt would help focus us all. I started to sing a song by Live that we all like and sort of fit what we were trying to do.
      "I can feel it coming back again,
      Like the rolling thunder chasing the wind.
      Forces pulling to the center of the earth again,
      I can feel it."
      Gradually, everyone else started singing to, and through my closed eyes I could see that the light in the cylinder was growing brighter.
      Something was wrong! My energy was draining from me way too fast! I tried to fight against it but too much of my energy was gone to even open my eyes. I felt Amy's hand slipping away. There was a jolt, then everything stopped, and I passed out.

Chapter 8
Nick

     I came to, and slowly became aware of people, or not people but aliens, talking. They seemed anxious about something.
      "We've only got half of them," said one.
      "Try again!" exclaimed the other.
      "There's nothing more to try. We've lost them, I'm sorry Captain."
      "I guess six will have to do for now. When's the next window?"
      "Not for another three hours."
      "We'll try again then."
      Slowly my head started to unfuzz itself. I opened my eyes to see that we were somewhere else, somewhere strange and brightly coloured, and half our group wasn't there. Judging from what I had over heard, I guessed that we had been re-abducted. This definitely wasn't a turning out to be a good day. Some of the others were starting to come to.
      "Oh man have I ever got a headache," said Leda.
      "Probably not as bad as mine," complained Chelsea. She tried to stand up, but got dizzy and sat back down.
      "WHERE'S REBECCA?!" exclaimed Jason, waking everyone else up, "Where is she! We've got to find her!
      "Yeah! And where's Ginny?!" exclaimed Chelsea.
      "Where is the other half of our group?!" exclaimed Sethe.
      "Forget that, where are we?" exclaimed Cole.
      "And who are those weird looking dudes at the back?" asked Sethe.
      "Yeah, who are you guys, and why are we here," demanded Jason, "And more importantly, WHERE'S MY GIRLFRIEND!"
      The two aliens turned to face us.
      "We're Noryicians. I'm Andon," said the short bluish one with spikey hair, funky clothes and a way cool tail.
      "I'm Silas," said the taller greenish bald one who also had funky looking clothes and an even longer tail.
      "We realized those blasted Yornicians had taken some more innocent people to suck the life energy out of them so we came as fast as we could to rescue you," said Andon.
      "Unfortunately, their shields went up before we could save all of you," continued Silas.
      "What do you mean they were going to suck all the life energy out of us? Like, they were going to kill us?" exclaimed Sethe.
      "I'm afraid so," answered Andon.
      "What about the other six that are still back on the ship!" exclaimed Jason, close to hysterics, "We have to save them!"
      "The next window isn't for another three hours. But I think they'll be safe for the time being. The Yornicians seem to like taking twelve at a time for some reason," said Andon who seemed to talk with more authority than Silas. Maybe he was the captain.
      "You mean this isn't the first time something like this has happened?" I asked.
      "Oh no, the Yornicians have been stealing energy from other life forms ever since they learned how to travel intergalacticly," said Andon.
      "Remember, all those reports on the news about the groups of twelve kids that keep disappearing," said Sethe, logically. She's always thinking. That's why I keep her around.
      "Oh, right," said Chelsea, who tends to forget things that don't concern her directly at that moment.
      "Where are you guys from anyway?" asked Cole.
      "We're from Plarney1 in the Andromida galaxy," said Silas.
      "So your planet orbits around the same sun as the Yornicians, right?" I guessed.
      "Yup. Actually, we both shared the same planet until the Yornicians tried to assassinate our leader. We had no choice but to send them to the other planet. It wasn't inhabited, but it was habitable..." Andon continued.
      Leda broke into my thoughts, "Nick, we can still speak telepathically, and I don't think the Noryicians can pick it up."
      "Cool! Do the others know?" I asked her as Andon blabbed on about how the Yornicians assassinated their leader three hundred earth years ago and other boring bits of Noryician history with dates and names that were harder to follow than Canadian history.
      "Yup, we know," said the others.
      "Something just doesn't seem right," said Leda, "They just strike the wrong chord with me."
      "Something doesn't sit right with me either, but we don't really have a choice right now, do we," I said.
      "I don't know guys, what they said really does make sense. If they're telling the truth, we have got to save the others, especially Rebecca," said Jason.
      "Either way, there's nothing we can do now," said Sethe.
      Andon continued to blab on and on.
      "Boy, that guy sure likes the sound of his own voice," said Chelsea.
      We giggled.
      "Hey, If we can still talk to each other, I wonder if we can walk through walls here?" wondered Chelsea.
      "On no, here we go again," moaned Leda.
      "I don't think it would be a good idea to try while the Noryicians are watching us," said Cole.
      "Yeah Chelsea," said Sethe, "We'll try later if they leave."
      "...But those days have long gone, so here we are. Do you have any more questions?" said Andon.
      "No... not really," I said.
      "None here," said Cole.
      "I just want to know how to get the others here!" exclaimed Jason.
      "I told you we'd try again in three hours," said Silas with an undertone of anger in his voice.
      Andon shot him a warning glance.
     "What in the world is going on here," I thought.
      "I don't know," replied Leda.
      "Maybe you kids would like a tour of the ship," said Andon.
      "That sounds cool," said Chelsea, but in her mind she thought, "We are not kids."
      "Okay, the room we're in now is the main control room. From this room we can control the shields, our weapons, the air quality, and the navigation of the ship," explained Andon.
      "Cool! Can I try to fly this baby?" I asked, not really expecting to be able to, but I wanted to see how far we could go with their supposed hospitality.
      "No I don't think..." began Silas.
      "I don't see why not," said Andon, "Here are the controls."
      Surprized, I looked down at a console. It had about thirty buttons on it and a little grid showing where we are. It showed us somewhere between Neptune and Uranus.
      "We sure are a long way from home," said Sethe.
      "So how do you work this baby?" I asked, now totally excited that I was actually going to do this. I know the boys and their toys thing is a bit of a cliche, and I don't normally go in for that kind of thing, but hey, how often do you get the chance to fly an alien space ship?
      He showed me which buttons did what and what the grid meant.
      "Hey watch this," I caught a solar wind and flipped the ship upside down.
      "Warn me before you do that, would ya?!" exclaimed Chelsea who looked a little green.
      "I think we should get going on the rest of our tour," said Silas, looking worried and equally green.
      "This next room is the dining room," said Andon.
      They turned around and told us to follow them through a door way. There was no real door. As they turned around I noticed that they had two strange lumps on their backs under their shirts.
      "I think those lumps are wings," thought Sethe.
      "They very well could be," I replied.
      "They look almost like Pterodactyls," commented Cole.
      "Hey, can you guys fly?" asked Chelsea, out loud.
      "Yes, we can," said Silas shortly.
      We walked into a bright orange room filled with paintings of a strange reddish green world and there were a few strange plants surrounding a black and pink table.
      "You must tell me who your interior decorator is," said Sethe with an undertone of sarcasm.
      "This is the dinning room," said Andon, ignoring her remark.
      "I hate being ignored," thought Sethe. We all ignored her.
      "That reminds me, it's been a while since we last ate on the Yornicians ship. Do you have any thing good to eat?" asked Chelsea.
      "You ate on the Yornicians ship?" Silas seemed taken aback. It didn't take a lot to surprise this guy.
      "Yeah, we had macaroni and cheese. It was pretty good," said Cole.
      "Except it had carrots in it," said Chelsea while wrinkling her nose, "Or at least the same thing as carrots."
      "What do you mean by the same thing as carrots? They weren't actual carrots?" asked Andon suspiciously.
      "No they were called Arlechello or Arellandio or something weird like that," explained Leda.
      "Arellano?" asked Andon.
      "Yeah that was it! How did you know?" I asked.
      "I knew the Yornicia had developed some sort of enzyme to eliminate the problem of Haenorgening, but I had no idea that they had found the enzyme in home grown plants!" Andon seemed really excited about this, we on the other hand had no clue what he was talking about. We gave Andon a "Please explain to the ignorant what in the world your just said," look.
      "You see, if the Yornicians had tried to take your energy without feeding you that plant, hidden of course because the Arellano on it's own has a really disgusting taste to it, a lot like your Earth carrots, which I can't see why anyone could actually eat..."
      "Amen to that," said Chelsea.
      "As I was saying," he continued, giving Chelsea a confused look look, "If you hadn't eaten some of this Arellano plant, instead of taking your energy permanently, it would have only been... for a short while and then your energy... would have been returned to you... along with the rest of the energy from the ship. That is what is known as the Haenorgen effect."
      The way he kept pausing between words and the annoying way he had of lecturing to us like we were children made me slightly suspicious of this guy, but it could have just been his personality. I really don't like people who like the sound of their own voices as much as this guy seemed to. Plus, not that I've met many aliens before or anything but, the buddy buddy way he was acting just seemed so fake.
      "You mean, if we hadn't eaten it, our energy would have, not only been returned, but we would have taken all the power out of the ship?" I asked. Andon nodded, "Cool, we would have had, like, super strength!"
      "Yeah, and because of those stupid carrots, we're majorly wasted," pouted Chelsea.
      "What do you guys eat," asked Sethe, changing the subject suddenly.
      "Well," Andon paused for a moment, thinking, "We eat food that is fairly similar to earth food in the fact that we grow it, and unlike the Yornicians, we actually eat food, we don't suck the energy out of it."
      "So if you grow all your food, I'm guessing you don't eat meat," Cole deduced.
      "Yes," answered Andon.
      "Eww, rabbit food!" exclaimed Chelsea, wrinkling her nose.
      "Eww meat!" retorted Andon.
      Chelsea pouted. We all laughed.
      "If you stick that bottom lip of yours out any farther, you're going to trip over it," said Deanna with an evil grin.
      "Cut it out would ya," said Leda while giving them both 'The Look'. I'm sure she's going to wear out the battery on that thing some day.
      "Let's just get on with the tour," said Silas impatiently.
      "Yeah, let's just get this stupid tour over with so we can get my girlfriend back," thought Jason, annoyed at us for not moving it along.
      I was a little worried about him. I know he was worried about Rebecca, we were all worried about the other six of us, not to mention our own situation which was far from certain. But he seemed like he was getting into a really foul mood. I've seen Jason when he's really upset. It's enough to make you want to crawl into a hole, especially if that anger's directed at you. Then you don't crawl, you run, run far away, as fast as you can. But there was very little I could do to improve his mood right then. We agreed with Silas and went along to the next room.
      "This is the exercise room," said Andon showing us a huge room with a lot of really cool looking junk.
      "Cool," said Sethe.
      "Yeah, this is totally awesome," said Leda, "How does this stuff work?"
      "Who cares," mumbled Jason telepathically.
      Leda sent him a warning look.
      Andon and Silas showed us each thing. There wasn't anything really all that interesting once they showed us what they did. Most of the stuff had to do with flying, so there wasn't anything we could try. Boring! I'd rather look at things I can play with.
      "What's left?" asked Sethe.
      "The shuttle bay, and the living quarters," answered Silas.
      "Well let's go then," said Cole.
      We walked down a hall, past a few rooms that seemed empty.
      "I wonder why they're all empty," I thought.
      "Beats the heck outta me," replied Chelsea.
      We continued down the hall to the living quarters. It was pretty boring stuff. As we continued down the hall, a really cool looking purple dude passed us. He gave us a smile and a wave.
      "Maybe the Noryicians aren't all that bad," I thought, "They certainly seem a lot friendlier than the Yornicians."
      "True," replied Chelsea, "But I still don't trust them."
      Then they took us down a really round tube type hallway into the shuttle bay. The shuttles looked like pea pods, except they were a reddish orange pinky color that's really hard to discribe. Gross.
      "Well that's the end of our tour," announced Andon.
      "How come you guys have never been mentioned by survivors?" asked Jason skeptically.
      "Well, whenever we save anyone, we wipe their memories," explained Andon.
      "Yeah, but so do the Yornicians, and people still remember," I said.
      "Yes, well, our technology is better than theirs when it comes to that," he explained.
      "Wait a second, something doesn't quite add up here," said Jason suddenly, "If the Yornicians were so bent on sucking out all our energy, why didn't they take it the first time we were abducted, and get it over with?"
      He definitely had a point there.
      "Abducted before? You must be mistaken. The Yornicians take their victims once, and that's it, poof, they're gone, dead, deceased, kaput," said Andon.
      "Really, well that doesn't make sense. I remember being abducted before," I said.
      "How's that possible? They've never done anything like that before," said Silas, looking a bit worried.
      "Well, see, we didn't remember that we had been abducted, before this time. See we were abducted before, and we agreed to help the Yornicians, but we decided not to remember because we were afraid we couldn't keep it a secret, so our memories were wiped. When we came back, we got our memories restored," explained Cole quickly.
      "I don't think you were getting your memories back, I think they were brainwashing you," said Andon.
      "There's one thing that still doesn't fit in this whole picture," said Jason telepathically, "All the survivors stories! If what the Noryicians say is true, and everyone the Yornicians take is killed, why do people come back, and describe the Yornician's exactly, alive! It just doesn't add up!" he had a point there as well. Jason's quite a pointy guy when he's determined.
      Sethe suddenly clutched my arm and held her head like she had a really bad headache.
      "Sethe, what's wrong," said Leda, obviously worried.
     Outloud she said, "I just have a headache, that's all," but telepathically to us she said, "I think, I think they, the others, they're..." Jason cut her off.
      "Are they all right? Are they dead? Please don't tell me they're dead. Are they in trouble? If those Yornicians hurt her I'll..."
      "No, they're fine Jason, it's just.... I think they're trying to get us back."

Chapter 9
Amy

      I woke up to the sound of Rebecca screaming.
      "Where's Jason?!" she screamed rivaling even Chelsea in intensity, and that's not an easy thing to do.
      "Oh no! Where is the rest of our group? Where'd they go? And how did we end up back in this room?" asked Deanna, as confused as I was.
      I tried to sit up, but I didn't have enough energy. I felt totally wasted. For a moment I couldn't remember why I felt so tired. I hadn't run a marathon in the past few hours, had I? Not that I knew of. Then I remembered. We had been trying to help out the Yornicians, when our energy had been drained suddenly, and I had passed out.
      "Amy, do you feel as dead as I do?" Ginny asked me, sounding as awful as I felt.
      "Yeah, I feel like a truck just ran over me," I replied.
      I shook my head, and tried to clear it. I thought about what I had heard. "Jason's not here? The rest of our group?" I opened my eyes to see that, like Deanna had said, we were back in the room we woke up in. I sat up slowly and looked around. Sethe, Cole, Leda, Nick, Jason, and Chelsea were gone. Everyone but Ginny and I were running around screaming bloody murder. Ginny was sitting on her bed, trying to calm people down.
      "HEY!" she yelled and a piercing whistle cut through the noise like a hot knife through butter. Everyone turned to look at Ginny.
      "Finally. Now, is everyone all right?" she asked.
      "That depends on what your definition of all right is," said Rebecca, with her hand to her head, "I've got a killer headache, and Jason's gone."
      "Same here," said Katherine.
      "No wonder with all the screaming you've all been doing," said Ginny.
      "Well we have good reason to scream. If you hadn't noticed, half our group has gone missing!" exclaimed Deanna.
      "Well screaming about it isn't exactly going to help, now is it?" Ginny shot back.
      "No, but it sure makes me feel better," said Deanna with a grin.
      While we had been talking, Toemara and Isshudo had come in without us noticing. Rebecca was the first one to notice them.
      She turned around and demanded, "What happened to them? Where's the other half of our group? Where's my boyfriend? Why do we feel so totally wiped?..."
      The Yornician's remained silent as Rebecca continued on a rampage until she finally collapsed into tears. Ginny went to her and Rebecca put her head on Ginny's shoulder, sobbing loudly.
      "What did happen to them?" I asked.
      "Our enemies, the Noryicians attempted to take all of you to their ship, and use all of you for their awful experiments. Fortunately, our defense systems stopped them halfway through, so they only managed to acquire half of you," explained Toemara.
      We gasped in horror.
      "Are they all right? I mean, they won't kill them, right?" said Deanna, her voice shaking badly.
      "No, we have no reason to believe that the Noryicians would kill the others," said Isshudo.
      "Who are these Noryicians dudes, and why are they so bent on taking innocent people to perform experiments on?" asked Ginny.
      "That is actually a very long story. Approximately six generations ago, we lived on Plarney1 as one race, the Noryiciains..."
      "You guys were actually the same people? Cool," I broke in.
      "Please do not interrupt," said Toemara, "As Isshudo was saying, we were once one race living on one planet. At this time, our world was in an extremely static stage of evolution. There was no improvement happening anywhere. The Noryicians are a brightly colored people, with wings and tails. At this time, they could not travel outside of their solar system. It was during this time of staticness, that the first Yornicians were born.
      "They were ridiculed, cast out by their own families. They were different than the Noryicians. They were all the same shade of grey and they had no wings, or tails. At that time, they did have small mouths, but they did not use them to speak. The Yornicians were tortured and taunted because they were different. They sought each other out in secrecy and attempted to earn the respect of the Noryicians, but we never used violence. At that time, and always, we are a people of peace. We will never hurt a living thing purposely.
      "Eventually, we both realized that the two races could not live together, on the same planet. We emigrated to Plarney2 which rotates around the same sun, in the same orbit, but is always on the exact opposite side of our sun. The ties between our two planets have been cut permanently since then. The Yornicians soon evolved a bit further and we are now without mouths and ears. The Noryicains were the first to travel out of our solar system. We had concentrated mostly on building a new and better society. We soon followed in space travel, only to discover that the Noryicians had been traveling to other inhabited planets and treating the inhabitants quite brutally.
      "This ship was the first on to be dispatched in the search to discover, and perhaps prevent the brutality that the Noryicians were displaying. We had also hoped to create some ties between our planet and others. After observing your planet for awhile however, we concluded that you were not prepared to create any kind of ties with our planet, and that, in your words, if you met us, you probably would have 'totally flipped'. By the time we discovered that there was nothing for us to do here, for at least not until your people can find peace amongst yourselves, it was too late for us to return to our planet. The rest you already know." finished Isshudo.
      "That's awful!" I exclaimed.
      "You poor people. To be thrown out off your own world. How terrible," said Katherine, "But that still doesn't explain why we all feel so... energyless."
      "That, we believe," Tomeara explained, "Is a very unfortunate side effect of the Noryician transporting device. It disrupted the energy field you were creating and drained a great deal of your energy while you were vulnerable. We believe that the effects will wear off shortly."       "Do you think there's any way to get the others back?" asked Ginny.
      "We are not sure right now. We have never encountered a situation like this before," said Toemara.
      "Maybe we can help," I piped up, "We may not know much about this ship, but we could try."
      I figured it couldn't hurt much, and besides, I've always wanted a chance to flex my science muscles a bit.
      "Can I help too?" asked Ginny.
      "All right," said Issudo, "Come this way."
      They led Ginny and I into a room with lots of consoles and lots of really cool looking blinking buttons. I looked around a bit stunned at the difference between the plainness of the rest of this ship, to the colourfulness of this room.
      "This is the console that controls our transport system," Toemara pointed to a small console near a wall to the right.
      I walked over to it and sighed deeply.
      "This console makes absolutely no sense to me," I admitted.
      "This controls the amount of power fed into the ferromagnetic coil," said Toemara pointing to a large blue blinking button.
      "What's a ferromagnetic coil? I don't think I've ever heard of that," I asked.
      "The ferromagnetic coil is the center of the super-electromagnet. When an electric current is passed through the electromagnet, it causes the magnet to spin, which causes the ferromagnetic coil to spin in the opposite direction. This creates an ion field which separates your individual atoms. Then the magneto-plasmodynamic inducer transmits your atoms to the destination, where your atoms are reconstructed."
      "That's quite a mouthful," commented Ginny.
      "Okay, so if that controls the flow of electricity, then where's the On button?" I inquired.
      "It is right here," said Isshudo pointing to a yellow blinking button.
      "So, why can't we just start this thing up and transport them over here?" asked Ginny.
      "Under normal circumstances, we could do that. Unfortunately, the Noryicians have an advanced shield mechanism which is impossible to transport through," explained Isshudo.
      "Then let's knock them out. Got any really cool high-tech weapons?" I asked.
      "No, we do not have any weapons of any kind," answered Isshudo.
      "Not even for self-defense and stuff?" asked Ginny.
      "No, not really. Certainly nothing that could take out those shields without destroying the ship," said Toemara.
      "How exactly do the Noryician's shields work?" I asked.
      "The Noryician's shields are made of negatively charged molecules, and since our transported is also negatively charged, the transporter beam bounces off their shield," explained Isshudo.
      "So why don't we just change the polarization of the transporter?" asked Ginny.
      "Because the beam still would not go through. It would get stuck and then the person who was unfortunate enough to be transporting at the time, would probably get their molecules scrambled with the molecules of the shield. After that who knows what would happen to them. I am not sure how shield and human molecules would interact," he explained rather graphically.
      "Okay, so how do we get rid of this thing?" inquired Ginny.
      "That is why we asked for your help. We had hoped that you had some possible suggestions," said Toemara.
      Ginny and I thought in silence, trying to come up with an answer.
      "What if we... no, that would never work," began Ginny.
      "What? At this point anything is a possibility," stated Isshudo.
      "Well I was just thinking if we can't knock out the shields completely, would it be possible to make a hole in them? If we could somehow send some kind of beam of molecules into their shield that are exactly the same as the molecules in the shield in every way, shape and form, except that they would be, like a mirror image of them," said Ginny quickly, "Then maybe the molecules would cancel each other out."
      "You mean Anti-matter?" I asked.
      "Yeah exactly. Do you think it would work," Ginny asked as she turned to the two Yornicians.
      They looked at each other and said something that we couldn't hear. Then they turned back to us.
      "We believe that your idea may work. We are not certain, but we are going to try," said Isshudo.
      We set to work on trying to reconfigure the transporter to emit this beam of anti-matter. I sincerely hoped that this would work. I really missed the rest of my friends and I hoped that they were okay.
      "I hope they're okay too," said Ginny sensing my feelings.
      I smiled and told her I was pretty sure they were.
      "Okay," I said, sitting back on my heels, "We're only going to have a few seconds before the Noryicians realize what we're doing and undo the damage we've done. I'm not sure how we're going to get one of us, and not one of the Noryicians."
      "Humans and Noryicians are very different. Our scans can tell them apart, but we can not tell the difference between humans with the Noryician's shield in the way so we will not know which of your friends we will transport," explained Toemara.
      "You mean you can actually scan them?" I asked, totally surprised.
      "Yes."
      "How are they? Are they all alive? Are they in any danger?" asked Ginny on a question rampage.
      "They are all alive. That is all we can tell at this point," said Isshudo, sounding annoyingly calm, as always.
      "Okay, it's finished," I said, tuning the last switch and closing the panel.
      "Now all we can do is hope this works," said Ginny.
      Ginny flipped the switch, turned the dial and closed her eyes, hopping for the best. I watched the monitor as the beam cut across the empty space and started boring a hole into the Noryicians shield. Finally, it reached the center.
      "Okay," said Ginny, opening her eyes, "Amy, press the green button over there, and turn the third knob 180 degrees."
      She set to work on typing at another console and checking another monitor.
      "There," she said suddenly, "I've found one. Come on, please work. Yes! We have a pattern!"
      "It's coming through the shield now," I said, 'Uh-oh! The shield's starting to repair itself!"
      "Oh great. Can't we speed this thing up any?" said Ginny trying everything possible to make the beam go faster - which included yelling at the console.
      "The shield is almost closed. We have to do something, and fast," I said.
      "There is nothing to do. We just have to hope that the beam gets past the shield before the shield closes," said Toemara.
      "It's almost past the shield Just a few more seconds, come on, come on you can do it. Yes we are clear of the shield!" exclaimed Ginny.
      "Yes! We've got them! Slap five," Ginny slapped my hands, "Now lets bring 'em home."
      I turned a dial and a shadowy figure appeared in front of us, then became clearer into the form of a person who looked rather diagonal. Slowly, the figure became clearer and we saw it was Sethe. She came fully into being and fell to the floor as if she had been leaning on someone when we had transported her. Ginny ran forward and embraced her best friend on the floor.
      "We were so worried about you. Are you all right?" she asked.
      "Yeah I'm fine, but how are you guys? Did they hurt you?" she looked up and saw Isshudo and Toemara standing there, "You didn't hurt them, did you?"
      "Oh course not, why would we?" They both looked extremely confused by this accusation.
      "We can fill each other in later. First let's go out with everyone else," said Ginny as she helped Sethe to her feet.
      "I knew you guys were trying to get us back, I wasn't sure how or why, but I knew that you were planning it," said Sethe.
      "How did you know?" I asked.
      "I heard you guys."
      "You mean we can still talk to each other?" we said in unison.
      "Probably."

Chapter 10
Jason

     As I watched in dismay, Sethe disappeared from Nick's arms. I stood there starring stupidly at the spot where Sethe had stood. All hell broke lose.
      "Where'd she go?"
      "Oh no! What happened to her? Why did she disappear?"
      "Did you do this?" I said accusingly to the two Noryicians.
      "No, we didn't. I think it was the Yornicians. They figured out how to penetrate our shields. We have to go to the control room and figure out how to stop them." They left abruptly, leaving us in a shocked silence.
      "Jason?" someone said softly in my head. It sounded like Rebecca!
      "Rebecca? Where are you?" I asked aloud.
      "What about Rebecca?" asked Chelsea confused as usual.
      "Didn't you hear her just now?" I was getting really frustrated. Was I going crazy?
      "Jason." The voice came again, clearer now.
      "Rebecca!" I thought in my mind with all my might, trying to get through to her.
      "Would you please stop yelling Jason!" said Leda looking angry, "You're hurting the inside of my head!"
      "Deanna?" said Chelsea, still looking totally confused.
      "Who in the world are you guys... Amy?" said Leda cutting herself off in mid sentence, "Guys, I just heard Amy calling me in my head!"
      "I just heard Deanna!" said Chelsea.
      "And I'm almost positive I heard Rebecca. Either that or I'm going insane," I said.
      "Maybe we can talk to them!!" we all exclaimed.
      "Hey over there on the other ship!" said Nick.
      Very softly, the reply came back, "Hi everybody!" I was pretty sure it was Deanna.
      "Is everyone all right over there?" asked Cole.
      "Yeah, we're all fine, a little tired, but besides that we're fine," I think it was Ginny this time. It was really hard to tell. I'm not sure if it was the distance or the shields or what, but it sounded like we were getting really bad reception. If this had been a phone, I would have switched companies.
      "Is Sethe over there with you guys?" asked Nick.
      "Yeah, I'm here," said Sethe.
      "HOW ARE YOU REBECCA?" I yelled across the telepathic waves making everyone cringe. It's not my fault, I wanted to make sure she heard me.
      "I'm fine Jason. Stop yelling. You're coming through fine," said Rebecca, exasperated with me. I love it when she gets like that.
      "Good, now we have to figure out how to rescue everyone over there," said Leda.
      "Rescue us? You mean how are we going to rescue you," said Amy.
      "The Noryicians told us that the Yornicians assassinated their leader and that they were trying to take all of our energy away. Like they were trying to kill us!" said Chelsea, "And they also said that the yucky carrot stuff that we ate was something to keep us from becoming super heroes."
      "What?" asked Ginny, as confused as the rest of us.
      "What Chelsea meant to say, was that the Yornicians put something in our food to keep us from getting our energy back, along with all the energy of the ship," Leda explained. It's a good thing Leda's known Chelsea for so long that she can translate for the rest of us because sometimes what comes out of her mouth is totally incomprehensable.
      "Well, the Yornicians told us that the Noryicians kicked them off their own planet just because they were different. They really need our help, or they're going to die!" said Charlotte.
      "Uh-oh, what do we do?" asked Deanna.
      "Who do we believe?" asked Rebecca.
      "I think that Yornicians are telling the truth, cuz the Noryicians told us that the Yornicians never take people more that once, but we all remember being taken before," said Leda.
      "Yes, but what if we haven't been? I mean, what if they just, like, made us think we had?" put in Sethe.
      "Could they do that?" asked Deanna.
      "Who knows. They seem to be able to do a lot of other stuff. I wouldn't put it past them," said Cole.
      "And besides, remember what happened when they took our energy? I think they were trying to take all of it, until the Noryicians saved us," I said.
      "But how do we know that the Noryicians didn't take us for their own use? There's another possiblitly here too. It's possible that they're both bad you know," stated Nick.
      "That is a possibility," said Ginny, pondering what he had said, "I think our best plan for now, would be to try to get home. I don't think we can really trust either race of aliens. The only ones we can trust are ourselves."
      "Ginny's right. I think we should make a plan of how we're going to escape," said Leda authoritatively.
      "But," came a small, high pitched voice that could only belong to Chelsea, "What if the Yornicians are telling the truth, and then we leave, and they all die. That would be really bad and..." her voice trailed off.
      Chelsea's not really known for completing thoughts, but we got the picture.
      "Yeah what if they all die, and it's all our fault?" said Deanna, not wanting the lives of the Yornicians on her conscience.
      "Yes, but what if they're bad, and we all die. That would be just as bad," said Ginny, "I suppose that the best thing to do, is to make a plan, just in case, and see how things progress."
      "Okay, first thing's first. What can we use to fly home?" asked Leda.
      "We could use this ship," said Nick, "I all ready know how to fly it."
      "Yeah right. And how do you say we manage to get the Noryicians to let you fly us all home? Besides, first we'd have to get everyone onto the Noryicians ship," put in Rebecca, the voice of reason, as usual. I don't know how we'd get along without her.
      "I want to go home," said Deanna in a small voice.
      She sounded very close to tears, and was obviously homesick. I sympathized with her completely. This had been cool and all, one for the history books in fact, but enough was enough, and I missed the Earth, and my more ordinary life.
      Just then, the two Noryicians walked through the door of the room.
      "The Yornicians are back," said Sethe over the wave lengths.
      "The Noryicians are back too," said Leda, "We'll talk later."
      "Bye Rebecca. I miss you, but I promise I'll get us out of this," I said as confidently as possible.
      "I know you will," she replied, "I miss you too. Bye."       "We've found a way to save your friends," announced Andon, sounding very proud of himself.
      "That's, ah, really... great," said Leda, not so enthusiastically, "Let's do it."
      The next thing I knew, Rebecca was standing in front of me.
      "Rebecca!" I shouted as I ran towards her, "Are you all right?"
      "Of course I'm all right," she said with tears springing to her eyes, "But I missed you so much. Promise me, Jason. Promise me you won't ever let us be separated again."
      "I promise," I said solemnly, holding her tightly.
      I looked up from our teary reunion to see that the others were also appearing in the room as well. There were lots of hugs and laughter all around.
      "We may not know which race is better," I thought, "But at least, we're together."
      "I second that, we stand a much better chance together," thought Leda, right before she disappeared before our eyes.
      Apparently, the Yornicians had also figured out how to get through the shields of the Noryicians ship with their transporters again. Chaos ensued.
      I briefly remember seeing a glimpse of the Yornician's ship before being violently yanked back to the Noryician's ship. I shook my head to try to clear the thick fog that was threatening to take over my mind. I looked up, and I noticed that the disappearing and reappearing act seemed to be over. In front of me were Chelsea, Ginny, Nick, Amy, Charlotte, and most importantly, Rebecca.
      I felt so relieved that we hadn't been split up. I reached out to embrace her, and before I touched her, she disappeared.
      "No!" I screamed in anguish, "How could they do this to us? This is not fair! Why does life have to be so cruel? I promised her! I promised."
      Ginny and Chelsea tried to comfort me, but it was no use. Losing Rebecca again was the final straw that broke the camel's back, and I was the camel. I sat down on the floor and wept bitterly. I could not comprehend why in the world fate had played such a cruel trick on me. I was only faintly aware of voices and activity around me. The Noryicians had left us, once again, to deal with our problems, alone.
      I tried to reach out to Rebecca with my mind, but something stopped me.
      I started thinking, "What if we never make it out of here? What if I die? What if I can't get through to Rebecca because the Yornicians have..."
      "No! It can't be!" I shouted, slamming my fist down on the ground, wanting nothing more than for it to swallow me up so that I wouldn't have to deal with the pain.
      Unfortunately, because of my new powers, the floor did, in a sense, swallow me up. More accurately, I fell through the floor.
      I came through to the other side of the floor, and luckily for me, there was a room underneath, so I didn't fall out into the deadly, vacuum of space. Instead, I fell to the ground, and hit the floor with a heavy, and painful thud.
      Being all ready weak from having my energy sucked out, then used as a rope in a transporting tug-of-war, then my emotional break down, and finally landing on a very hard floor, I fell into unconsciousness.
      I hadn't been out for very long, when voices in my head woke me up.
      "Jason? Jason where are you?" asked the voices in my head. I slowly realized that I was not going insane, the voices were those of my friends.
      "I'm down here," I responded eventually, "I'm in some kind of room below you guys. Man, it's huge! It's kinda dark."
      "How did you get down there?" asked Amy.
      "I fell through the floor. I kind of just wished it to not be solid and, well, it wasn't." I answered, "The problem is, how do I get back up?"
      "Maybe we should ask the Noryicians. I'll go get them," said Chelsea.
      "No! Chelsea wait! That would mean showing them what we can do to explain this whole thing, and I don't think that's a good idea, and besi...." I broke off as something caught my eye.
      It had been too dark to see them before, but now that my eyes had adjusted to the small amount of light, I could make out the silhouettes of shapes surrounding me.
      "And what?" prompted Chelsea impatiently.
      "I don't think I'm alone down here," I said.
      I walked closer to the shapes as I explained to the others what I was seeing. The shapes were slightly taller than me, I'd say about 6'2" or so. There were 12 of them, surrounding me in a circle. As I got closer, and they didn't react, I became boulder and reached out to touch one of them. It moved, but in a lifeless way. Each identical, all costumes to imitate the Yornicians.
      "Guys," I said, "I think you should get down here. Now."

Chapter 11
Charlotte

      "Well, here goes nothing," said Ginny as she changed the molecular structure of the floor, and plummeted through.
      In the minuets before we had noticed that Jason had disappeared, the others had filled Ginny, Amy, and I in on exactly what the Noryicians were like, and what had been going on over on this ship. They had come into the room, welcomed us and then informed us that they were going to figure out a way to "rescue" the other six. Right off the bat, I did not trust these people, and I told the others as much.
      My head was still aching from being chucked back and forth rather violently between the two ships. I was not looking forward to this trip through the floor.
      "Ouch!" said Ginny a few moments later as she apparently hit the floor of the room below us, "I don't want to do that one ever again."
      "Ginny, are you okay?" asked Jason.
      "Yeah, I'm fine. A few bruised ribs, a possible concussion, and maybe some internal bleeding, but besides that, I think I'll live," responded Ginny sarcastically.
      You know, it's a very interesting and weird thing to hear two people have a conversation in your mind when they're a floor below you and you can't see them. I wonder if that's how insane people feel?
      "Is there anyway to make this jump easier and less painful and stuff?" asked Chelsea, looking terrified.
      "Well, what's this over here?" Ginny asked Jason.
      "It looks like a big bag of, air," answered Jason.
      "No, it smells more like...carbon diox...no, chlorine, oxygenated chlorine! It's being fed through those vents down here. I wonder if that's what the Noryicians actually breath?" said Ginny on a rampage of science. Personally, science is one of my least favorite subjects, not counting science-fiction of course. That, I'm an expert on.
      "All right all ready! Can we land on it safely or not?" asked Nick impatiently.
      "I think so," said Jason.
      "The problem is, how to land in the right spot," said Amy.
      "Okay, I think I got that on covered," said Ginny, "Okay, if you stand exactly where I went through the floor, and turn to face the door, then take two steps forward, and three steps to your left, you should land somewhere around the middle of the biggest bag."
      We followed her instructions.
      "Here goes nothing," said Nick as he jumped through the floor.
      Amy followed suit, and then Chelsea closed her eyes, plugged her nose, and jumped. What did she think this was, a swimming pool? I was about to jump through after her, when I heard the voices of the Noryicians coming towards the room. I jumped as quickly as possible, and hoped they hadn't seen me.
      I hit the bag with a whoosh of air. It smelt like a pool, which was probably because of the oxygenated chlorine. I guess Chelsea was kinda right when she plugged her nose. Chelsea was at the edge of the bag, and the others were standing around it. That was pretty much all I could see. The rest was obscured by darkness.
      "Right before I jumped, I heard the Noryicians coming. I'm not sure if they saw me or not," I told them.
      "Oh no! What are we going to do?" asked Chelsea in her annoying, high pitched voice, "What if they saw you and are coming to get us?"
      "Don't have a spaz Chelsea," said Ginny, "We don't even know if they're really all that bad or not. I don't think we should be jumping to conclusions."
      "Well actually Ginny, there's something down here that might just make you think twice before you say that," said Jason, "This is why I wanted everyone down here."
      I slid off the bag and went over to what he was pointing to. They looked like Yornicians being hanged or something!
      "They're costumes!" said Amy. Okay, so I was wrong. big deal.
      "Yeah, and they look like the Yornicians. But why...?" said Chelsea breaking off mid-sentence.
      "Don't you get it?" I said, "The Noryicians have been going around abducting people, and doing horrible experiments, and nearly wiping out people's memories but not quite so that they just barely remember, and impersonating the Yornicians so that people think that they're the ones who are doing it!"
      "Yeah!" broke in Ginny, "And so when the Yornicians finally do ask for help, everyone would be so scared, that they wouldn't help."
      "Unfortunately, the Noryicians didn't count on humans thinking it was all a big hoax," put in Nick.
      "And being so dense and closed minded," said Jason.
      "You mean cautious, and stubborn," said Amy.
      "What ever. The point is that the Yornicians really do need our help. We have to get over there A.S.A.P." said Ginny.
      "But the question still remains. How?" said Nick.
      "Could we turn on a light down here?" asked Chelsea.
      "You find us a light, and we'll turn it on for you. How about that?" I said.
      I couldn't quite see Chelsea, but I guessed by her silence that she was pouting. That seems to be the only time she's ever quiet.
      "Maybe we should contact the others and tell them what we've learned," said Nick.
      "I tried that before, but I couldn't get through," said Jason, "But maybe it'll work now."
      We all tried, but we couldn't get through. It was like something was blocking us. I wondered what was going on over there that could keep us from talking to them? I hoped there was nothing wrong.
      "Don't even think that," said Jason breaking into my thoughts.
      "Sorry," I said, "I forgot Rebecca's over there."
      "Don't worry Jason, I'm sure there's nothing wrong. It's probably just a planet or something in the way," said Ginny comfortingly.
      "Or maybe the Noryicians put up a stronger shield so that the transporter couldn't get through," suggested Amy.
      "That would make sense," I said, "That's probably all it is."
      During this time, Chelsea had slipped off to the dark recesses of the room. We hadn't noticed until a call came from across the room, "I found something!"
      "Good for you Chelsea," said Ginny condescendingly, "Could you tell us where and what it is?"
      "I think it's a light switch," she called back, ignoring Ginny's tone of voice.
      I heard a faint click, a high pitched buzzing, and then slowly, the lights came on.
      "Go Chelsea. You did something for right for a change," I said cruelly.
      "Yes I did. More than you've done, Charlotte Webber," she said sticking her tongue out at me.
      I stuck mine out back, then realized I was acting like a child and stopped. I had to give the girl some credit. She was sticking up to me, and that's rare for someone who just met me. I have a bit of unfortunate habit of being mean to people when I first meet them. My therapist thinks it's a security thing.
      "You're all right," I said, putting my arm around her, "I think I'll keep you."
      She smiled at that.
      We looked around the room, and were shocked and appalled by what we saw. Besides the hanging costumes, and the big bags that we already knew about, there were three tables that looked like operating tables, some really weird and dangerous looking instruments that I was not going near, big huge things that looked like portable walls, and some kind of glowing, green cylinder thing that looked a lot like the one on the Yornicians ship. I guessed that they really were the ones abducting people.
      "Oh man," said Ginny.
      "I think I'm going to be sick," said Chelsea, turning various shades of green.
      "I think I'm going to join you," I said, not feeling that great myself.
      "This place is huge!" exclaimed Amy.
      "That's for sure. It must run under the entire ship," said Ginny.
      Most of the room was taken up by the large bags of gas The rest seemed to be for storage. There were a few rows of boxes, and more glowing green cylinders, most of them a lot larger than the one on the floor. They also seemed to be being fed into the ship. I nearly was sick once again when I realized what they were probably for.br>       "I think the Noryicians have been using human energy to power their ship," I said.
      "We've got to get off this ship," said Ginny.
      "But how?" whined Chelsea
      "Wait, what about the shuttles!" exclaimed Jason.
      "Oh right! I forgot about those," said Chelsea brightening.
      "How do we get there though? I don't see any way up," I said."
      "Hey, look at this," said Ginny pointing at the ceiling, "There are words written on the ceiling."
      We all looked up to where she was pointing, and saw about 14 lines of words, that we couldn't read. One of them looked slightly like Japanese or something, but I wouldn't know. I don't speak any thing but English and French.
      "That one looks familiar. It looks sort of like Russian," said Amy.
      "Great. Does anyone speak Russian?" asked Jason.
      "I know how to write 'Freedom to the Earth." in Russian,' said Chelsea.
      "Oh that's a big help," I said.
sarcastically, "Considering what they're like, I doubt that's what they're writing on their ceiling."
      "Well you did ask," Chelsea retorted.
      "This part of the ceiling says something to," Nick pointed out.
      We looked where Nick was pointing, and there were more lines of words. One of them was undeniably French. It said, "Cuisine".
      "That must be the kitchen!" I exclaimed, "We must be under the kitchen! That's what those words mean!"
      We were all very excited about this revelation, so we all ran around looking at the ceiling looking for one that said shuttle bay.
      "But... why would they have the names to all these rooms written on the ceiling in so many languages? I mean, in their own, I can understand, but this is almost a bit silly," Nick very accurately pointed out.
      We were all stumped. It did indeed seem very strange. Yet, at the same time, somewhat familiar. I tried to remember when I had seen words in different languages posted on things.
      "Of course!" I cried, when I remembered, "In French class!"
      They all looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I realized I had been shielding the rest of my thoughts to concentrate better and so that outburst had come seemingly out of the blue from their perspective.
      "Think about it, where do you see lots of words posted all over the place? In French class. It helps you learn the names for things in different languages. Haven't you noticed how much better the Noryicians are with English? Maybe this is one of the ways they used to learn."
      I felt very pleased with what I felt was a brilliant deduction on my part.
      "Cool," said Ginny.       "What is shuttle bay in French?" asked Jason.
      "It's..ah..stationnement de navette I think," answered Amy.
      "That sounds right, and it would be something similar in Spanish and Italian too." said Ginny.
      I was dissapointed no one else seemed to think I was brilliant, but Chelsea gave me a thumbs up and made me feel a bit better. We continued to look until Nick shouted across the room, "I think I found it!"
      We all ran over and sure enough, there it was.
      "Great! But now what do we do?" asked Chelsea.
      "That's a good question," said Jason.
      "How would the Noryicians do it?" asked Amy.
      "They'd probably fly," I answered.
      "Hey! Charlotte, were you in cheerleading at your old school?" Chelsea asked me.
      "Yeah. But I really don't think this is the time or the place to be getting to know each other better?" I replied, wondering if Chelsea had finally lost it.
      She sighed, "There's a reason I'm asking. You know how to do a double base, right?"
      I nodded. It was a fairly simple move we learned early on. It involved one person, the top, standing on the hands of two other people, the bases, and being lifted to their shoulder level.
      "Of course." I said realizing what she was getting at, "But we need more people to get Ginny up that high,"
      "Jason could spot, he's the tallest, and you and Chelsea could be the base," said Ginny.
      "But what if I drop you!" exclaimed Jason.
      "Just hope you don't," said Chelsea, "Oh! I wish Leda, and Katherine were here. The four of us were the best team."
      "We can do it," I said enthusiastically.
      "I'll do it as long as I don't have to wear some stupid skirt and put on a really fake smile," said Jason trying to break the tense mood.
      It worked. We all laughed and Chelsea stuck her tongue out at Jason. I wonder how often she does that?
      "Okay, let's do it," I said as Chelsea went into a lunge in front of me. I had to go a little lower than usual to make up for the height difference. Ginny got in place beside us, and put her hands on our shoulders.
      "Jason, you get behind me and put your hands on my waist" said Ginny as she put his hands in the right spot, "Nick and Amy, you guys get ready to catch me in case something goes wrong," she said.
      "Okay Jason. This is how it works. We're going to say "One two, down up, down up," and on the last up, you lift Ginny onto our hands," said Chelsea.
      "And on the down ups and one twos, you have to bend with us," said Ginny.
      "When she's up on our hands, we say "One two down up, down up" again and then we slowly lift her to chest level," I said.
      "You have to try really hard to lift me as much as you can and make sure I don't fall."
      "Okay, let's see if we can do it," said Jason looking a bit worried.
      "Ready?" Chelsea asked, looking into my eyes.
      "Ready," I replied.
      "One two, down up, down up!" we said in unison as we bent and stretched and finally got Ginny onto our hands.
      "Good thing you wore sneakers today," I grunted, "And it's a good thing you're so light. I'm way out of practice."
      "This is not a good time to tell me this," she said back.
      "Sorry."
      "Ready?" I asked Chelsea.
      She nodded.
      "One two, down up, down... uuupppp," we grunted as we slowly lifted Ginny into the double base position.
      "There, now that wasn't so hard, was it," I said breathing a sigh of relief.
      "Um, just one problem," Ginny called from above, "I can't quite reach the ceiling. You're going to have to put me up into an extension."
      "What! We can't do that! I've only done an extension once, and that was with a trained spotter. Jason has no idea what he's doing!" I exclaimed.
      "Yeah Ginny, we've only done it with Leda and Katherine. It's too dangerous. Let's just put you down and see if there's another way," said Chelsea.
      "No. We have to do this. There is no other way," said Ginny.
      "Okay, but if you fall, it's not our fault," I said.
      "How, and what in the world is an extension?" asked Jason.
      "All you have to do is hold on to Ginny, guide her legs up, and try to take as much weight off of us as possible," I told him.
      Luckily, Jason is quite tall, I'd say about 6'3 or so, plus he's extremely strong, so I wasn't too worried about the extension on his part.
      "Do we have to do the bending thing again?" asked Jason.
      "Yes, and hurry up, my arms are starting to give out," Chelsea complained.
      "Okay, Ginny stay as straight as humanly possible," I called up.
      "I know. I have done this before," she called back down, "Amy and Nick, get ready to catch me if I fall."
      "We're ready," said Amy confidently.
      "One two, down up, down urropp!" we grunted out the last up and slowly and extremely shakily got Ginny up to a full extension. Meaning, basically, up to as far as our arms would reach.
      "Almost, a little further," said Ginny, "Got it!"
      I looked up to see Ginny grope around on the ceiling until she found a catch in it and pushed her way up through a trap door.
      "I can't hold her much longer," said Chelsea out of breath, "We've got to bring her down."
      "Just two more seconds Chelsea, you can do it," grunted Ginny.
      Chelsea was covered in sweat and her arms were shaking like mad and so were mine.
      "Hold out just a bit longer Chelsea. You're doing fine," I muttered.
      "No, I can't. Ginny you're coming down now," said Chelsea as her arms gave out.
      Jason grabbed automatically for Ginny's feet, but she wasn't falling. She had grabbed onto the ledge and Jason pushed her up onto the next floor.
      "I'm up," thought Ginny, "And it's really dark up here. It's definitely the shuttle bay though. I can barely make the shuttles out, but they're here."
      "This is all great, but how do the rest of us get up there?" asked Nick.
      "I'm not doing that again," said Chelsea who had collapsed on the floor in exhaustion.
      "I don't think you'll have too," said Ginny, "There's a rope ladder right here next to this trap door."
      "What do you mean, a rope ladder?" I asked.
      "I mean what I said," Ginny replied.
      "But... why?" asked Nick.
      "I suppose they can't fly down," said Ginny, "I'm throwing it down."
      She threw it down and Nick grabbed on.
      We all climbed up the rope ladder into the blackness above us. When I reached the top, I could only make out a few silhouettes of large black things that looked almost like large pea pods. Amy was groping around in the dark for a light switch or something.
      "I think I found something!" she exclaimed.
      The lights slowly came on in a high pitched whir I looked around at our new surroundings. It was large, extremely large. Not as large as the room underneath, but large nonetheless The ceiling was higher than any of the other rooms and it sloped down towards the to doors at either side of the room. the room was in a slightly curved shape. There were three shuttles, that did in fact look like giant pea pods, except they were an iridescent red, pink, and orange color.
      "Nice color," said Chelsea sarcastically, "Who picked that one out."
      "My guess would be the Noryicians," said Ginny, "It matches everything else in this place."
      Suddenly, the lights went out again.
      "What was that?" I called.
      "Sorry," Amy called from the other side of the room, "I was just knocking out the Noryicians' sensors so that we can get out of here undetected."
      "And you knew how to do that? Amazing," said Nick.
      "Well, actually, I just sort of guessed. But it seemed to work."
      "Only Amy," sighed Chelsea.
      "Let's get out of here," said Ginny.
      We all went cautiously towards the nearest shuttle.
      "Okay, so, like, where's the door in this thing?" asked Jason.
      "No idea," said Chelsea.
      We walked around the thing until finally Ginny called, "I think I found it!"
      I walked around the ship until I found her on the opposite side of the ship. Ginny, Jason, and Nick were working on prying the door open.
      Chelsea was standing to one side, when she suddenly said, "Wait! What's this?"
      She reached out to touch a small imprint in front of her. In a sudden whoosh of air, a small part of the ship opened up.
      "Well, that was easy," I said.
      We all piled in. The shuttle seemed like it was built to hold about three, not six, but we all managed to squeeze in. Nick got into the pilot's seat, Ginny got into the seat on the other side, and Chelsea got in between them. Amy, Jason, and I had to stand behind them but there was thankfully enough standing room.
      "Now that we're in, how do we start this thing?" Ginny asked Nick.
      "How should I know? I just drove the ship, I didn't start it," said Nick defensively.
      They were searching around for a start button, or a key, or something, when Chelsea spotted a purple button.
      "Hey cool! A purple button. That's my favorite color. I wonder what it does?"
      Rather than simply wondering like most people would, Chelsea reached out her hand and pushed it.
      "No Chelsea! Don't touch that...." exclaimed Nick as the power came on and the ship started to work, "Hey! What do you know? It works! Amazing."
      "Thank you, thank you," said Chelsea while mock bowing as if she had pushed that button knowing what it was for, rather than making a really lucky guess.
      Nick took over the controls and slowly brought us out of the shuttle bay through a hatch that had opened when the power had come on in the shuttle. The shuttle shuddered slightly as he steered it out into space past the walls of the ship.
      Out in space, we finally got out first look at the Noryician, and Yornician's ships. The Noryician ship was quite large in comparison to the shuttle, and larger than the Yornicians ship as well. It looked similar to a French croissant or a quarter moon. It was a reddish orange color, and was stripped with yellow. It was really quite ugly and suited the Noryicians personalities, and decor perfectly.
      The Yornicians ship, on the other hand, was smaller and shaped more like a sideways rain drop that was cut in half. It was a beautiful greenish blue colour and was quite pleasant to look at.
      "I've waited my whole life for this," said Ginny in awe.
      "Waited for what?" asked Jason.
      "To see space, for real, not just in pictures, but to actually be out in space," she sighed in rapture.
      "It is kinda cool, isn't it," Chelsea remarked quietly, for a change.
      "Yeah, just kinda," I said also enjoying the view completely.
      We drifted over to the Yornicians ship at what seemed to be a very slow speed, but was probably very fast in comparison to anything we'd ever traveled at before.
      "I wonder if we can contact the others now that we're past the Noryicians shield?" asked Jason.
      "Maybe, let's try," said Ginny.
      "Hello, can you hear us?" said Amy.
      "Help!" came a cry over the wave lengths, "You have to get us out of here!"
      "We stole one of the Noryician shuttles. We're on our way over. Just stay together and we'll be there soon," Ginny explained as calmly as possible.
      "What's going on over there Rebecca?" asked Jason frightened for his girlfriend, as usual.
      "Just hurry up and get here! We need help!" Rebecca sounded really frantic.
      "We're on our way."

Chapter 12
Sethe

      After a lot of being tossed back and forth between the two ships, like idea's sometimes are in my mind, there was a final jolt before everything stopped. Leda, Rebecca, Cole, Katherine, Deanna and I were left on the Yornicians ship. We were all very worried about the others, but worried about ourselves at the same time. I was still unsure about which side was good, or even if there was a good side. It was possible that they're all bad, but at the same time, it was equally possible that they were all good. It was all very confusing.
      "Is everyone all right?" asked Cole, being his usual sweet and concerned self.
      "I think so," said Deanna softly.
      "Speak for yourself," said Rebecca, "I've got a splitting headache, and I've been split up from Jason again!"
      "Let's see how everyone on the other ship is," suggested Leda.
      "How is everyone?" we all asked.
      We waited for an answer, but none came back. It was like something was blocking us. I wondered what in the world it could be.
      "What's going on?" asked Katherine.
      "I have no idea, but I hope nothing's wrong," said Rebecca, obviously thinking mostly of Jason.
      "The Noryicians have put up a new shield which prevents us from transporting the others from the ship, or communicating with them," said Toemara as he came into the room along with Isshudo.
      "Is everyone all right?" asked Isshudo.
      "Yes, we're all pretty much fine. A few headaches, and a broken heart, but nothing worse than that," Leda explained, being slightly sarcastic when she mentioned Rebecca's broken heart. I'm not sure why. Leda's normally a lot more understanding.
      "Hey, if it was your boyfriend, you'd feel the same way!" exclaimed Rebecca.
      "Somehow I don't..." Leda cut off mid-sentence as she put her hand to her head, "Oww! My head really hurts. This is not a normal headache."
      "I've got a really bad one too," said Rebecca, also with her hand to her head.
      Pain filled nods of acknowledgment went around the room. I had a really bad headache too, and it was starting to get really annoying. It was interupting my ability to think through everything that was going on, and that really pissed me off.
      "What I wouldn't do for a Tylenol right now," groaned Katherine.
      "Sorry, I didn't bring any with me today," said Leda, "Not that it'd do me much good, I don't have my book bag, I left it in the park."
      I groaned as I remembered all the important things that were in my book bag, out in the open in the park, for anyone to steal. Not to mention all my school stuff, not that I really worried about it getting stolen, but it would be a pain to replace when we got home... if we got home.
      "What is Tylenol?" asked Isshudo confused.
      "It's a human miracle cure for headaches," said Cole with his eyes squinting from the pain.
      "We will go find something to help," said Toemara.
      The two Yornicians left through one of the walls. The lights were really starting to bother me. I sat down onto the floor with a thump and put my head in my hands. I sat there and began to massage my temples. It was starting to help a little, I just hoped the Yornicians got back soon.
      "Help me," came a small, male voice in my head. I guessed it must be Cole's voice, considering he was the only guy in the room.
      "Are you okay Cole?" I asked him concerned.
      "Yeah, what do you need help with?" asked Leda.
      "Huh, what do you mean? I heard someone say "help me" but it certainly wasn't me," Cole replied, very confused.
      "Oh no! It was Jason, he's in trouble," exclaimed Rebecca, totally freaked.
      "I'm sure it wasn't Jason," said Cole, "It didn't sound like his voice at all."
      "Are you positive?" asked Rebecca, looking worried.
      "Of course I am, he's been my best friend for forever. I know his voice," said Cole reassuringly.
      "Okay, but who was it then?" Rebecca said as her eyes darted around the room.
      Her eyes came to rest on Deanna who was huddled in a corner with her hands over her ears.
     "Deanna, was it you?" called Leda after following Rebecca's gaze.
     "Me what?" asked Deanna softly, looking up dazedly.
      "Did you ask for help?" I asked, concerned.
      "No, but I asked for Tylenol," Deanna mumbled, rubbing her head.
      We looked at each other worried. It obviously wasn't one of us, but who else could it be? It didn't sound like either of the Yornicians. I suppose it could have been one of the Yornicians that we hadn't met, but we were pretty sure it was a human voice. While I pondered over the possibilities of who it could have been, attempting to ignore the throbbing pain in my head, and the arguing people around me, I came to the conclusion, no small feat for me, to go and look around the ship to find whoever it was.
      "Why don't we go look for this person?" I suggested after getting everyone's attention.
      "Good idea," said Cole, "And much better than standing around trying to figure it out."
      "Wait, won't the Yornicians mind?" asked Leda.
      "Not if they don't know. Besides, we've all ready seen the whole ship, why shouldn't we sneak around a little. It's not like they told us not to," said Katherine.
      We agreed and went through the wall in search of the source of the voice. We wandered aimlessly around through rooms at random for what seemed like hours. Finally, we decided to get organized. We decided to go in straight lines from one end of the ship to the other, in two groups of three, avoiding the rooms that the Yornicians are normally in. Luckily, the ship wasn't that big. It's only ten rooms across at it's widest point. I always wondered what it looked like on the out side, because it's very strangely shaped on the inside. I suppose it could be a sort of circle, or oval shape, but I couldn't really tell from the inside.
      Anyway, Cole, Deanna, and I started at the upper right corner, and Leda, Rebecca, and Katherine started at the upper left corner. We walked in silence, looking carefully in each room as we passed through it. After walking through four rows of rooms, I was really getting tired.
      "Could we stop for a break please?" I asked, resting my hand up against the far wall of the room.
      I jumped back as a violent shock ran through my hand, right down into my feet.
      "That wall shocked me!" I exclaimed.
      "What? How can a wall shock you?" asked Cole, looking at the wall suspiciously
      "Don't ask me, ask the wall," I mumbled, nursing my hand, "It felt like there was an electric current running through it."
      "Maybe the Yornicians put a current through the outer walls so that no one goes through into space by accident," Cole suggested.
      "But, this isn't the last room, there should still be one more. The last row of rooms we went through had five rooms, so this one should have had six, but I only remember going through five," said Deanna suddenly.
      "You know, you're right. Good thing someone was paying attention," I said, "Let's call the others over here."
      "Hey, Katherine, Rebecca and Leda, we think we've found something!" Deanna exclaimed.
      "Where are you?" asked Katherine.
      "We're in the top room on the left side, three rows in," Cole answered.
      "We'll be right there!" they called back.
      "You know, this speaking telepathically thing is really cool, and useful. I just hope we don't loose the ability when, and if, we get home," I thought to myself, but everyone else heard it. One downfall to it is you can never think to yourself without concentrating.
      "I know what you mean," said Cole, "It is really cool. Don't worry about getting home though. We will, I guarantee it."
      "That's what I really like about Cole. His ability to make everything better, even when he's not so sure himself, he makes it sound like he is, so everyone else feels better." I thought, smiling.
      "Why thank-you," he said, looking puffed up and Leoish.
      I'm really bad at keeping my thoughts to myself.
      "That's one thing I wouldn't miss," I said, "being able to think without someone butting in. It gets very confusing sometimes."
      "That's for sure," agreed Deanna, "All this freakin' noise is driving me battier. But, just think of the possibilities in school! We would be totally amazing at tests!"
      Leda, Katherine, and Rebecca came through the wall next to us and the six of us stood, staring at this stupid wall that wouldn't let us through.
      "So," said Cole, looking at everyone as we all looked at the wall.
     "So... what now?" asked Leda.
      "We figure out a way through," Katherine stated authoritatively.
      One thing is for sure, with our heads feeling like they were going to split open, we were not exactly being the smartest people ever. Although it may seem like Katherine's statement was pretty obvious, most of us were just staring at it like dumb sheep waiting to be lead through. This is the problem with headaches. I wondered if I could start a lobby group against it, then I realized that this pain was making my thoughts make less sense than usual.
     "That's great to say, but how do you suggest we do that," Leda retorted.
     We stood in silence, wrapped up in our own thoughts and ideas. Periodically, someone would think they had a plan, but when it was thought out, it fell flat.
     "How do you think the Yornicians get through the wall?" asked Deanna.
     "You'd think there'd be some kind of panel, or something to be able to switch it off, or something," I suggested.
     "Yeah you'd think. But I don't think the Yornicians would be stupid enough to put the switch right next to a room they're protecting," said Katherine meanly. She was obviously getting frustrated with this whole situation.
     I really dislike when Katherine gets like that, so I decided to block everyone out and let them battle it out on their own. If they didn't want my help, that's no skin off my back. Well actually, I did sort of care what was behind that wall. Libra curiosity I suppose. 'Leave no mystery unsolved!' That's my creed. I tuned back in to the increasingly loud argument. Cole had come up with the semi-brilliant idea to take Deanna's hair clip, and while holding on to the plastic end, put the metal end to the wall and short circuit the current.
     "Don't worry, I know a lot about electricity. I got a ninety on my last science test and it was full of stuff about electricity," boasted Cole.
     "Really," said Deanna impressed, "Science is my absolute worst subject."
     "Ah, Cole. I hate to burst your ego, but didn't you get like a sixty on that last test," broke in Katherine, who's in Cole's science class.
     "Well, sixty, ninety, what's the difference. Besides, I knew all the stuff about electricity, it was just the other stuff I forgot."
     "Whatever Cole," said Katherine.
     Cole looked like he was about to say something, but he decided against it and approached the wall. In an over dramatic gesture, he rolled up his sleeves, and put the clip to the wall. We all watched in anticipation of sparks... fire... anything... but nothing happened, absolutely nothing on the wall reacted. Cole touched the metal that was touching the wall, but there was no current going through it. He reached out to see if there was still a current going through the wall. He jumped back in pain, and we all saw the spark that hit his hand.
     "Well, science boy, that worked well," said Katherine sarcastically.
     "No need to be mean about it," said Leda, "Cole could have gotten really hurt."
     "I am so fed up with this whole situation. It's so aggravating!" shouted Katherine, looking mad enough to hit someone.
     Luckily, she chose to hit the wall, rather than one of us. She smashed her fist into the wall nearest to her, and, strangely enough, rather than her fist going through the wall as we all expected, a small door opened in the to reveal a complicated looking panel.
     "See, I told you there had to be a panel," I said smiling.
     "Oh be quiet and figure out how to open that damned wall," mumbled Katherine while massaging her sore hand. Boy was she ever in a bad mood.
     I looked at the panel, along with Rebecca and Cole for quite a while. There didn't seem to be an obvious way to turn it off. There was a red light near the bottom of the panel. It was blinking on and off.
     "I think that shows whether the current's on or not," said Rebecca, pointing to the light.
     "Yeah, but how do we get it to turn off?" asked Cole.
     "Why not press it?" I suggested. I reached out my hand to push it in, but it didn't move.
<     "Okay, then let's try this button," I randomly picked a button, but nothing changed.
     "How about this one." Same result- no change.
     "This is useless. We can't just stand here, randomly pushing buttons all day. The Yornicians are going to realize we're gone soon and come to find us," said Cole, beginning to get impatient.
     "Okay then, you do something then," I retorted.
     "Fine, I will." He stared intently at the small panel for several seconds, until something off to the side caught his attention. He looked over between the wall and the actual panel and saw a minuscule button about the size of a pin head sticking out.
     "Aha!" he exclaimed as he reached over and pushed the small button.
     The light stopped blinking and went out. Leda reached over and touched the wall. It didn't give off a shock. Lucky her. Cole took a few bows and we stood before the wall, almost afraid to go through.
     "Well, what are we waiting for," asked Katherine, "Let's go."
     "Yes," I said, "Let's see what secrets the Yornicians are hiding."
     We looked at each other, then somewhat boldly, walked into the unknown.

Chapter 13
Alexander

     It had been a very long time since I had actually seen another human, at least, one outside my head. So long, that I had completely lost all track of time. When I learned that the newest victims were in fact still alive, I had begun to hope that at last someone would find me and set me free. I sent out a help signal, faint though it was through that damned wall, but it was several minutes, maybe even an hour before they came. But what is an hour really after a lifetime of confinement. I could faintly hear their thoughts through the wall as they were trying to figure out a way through. I wished them luck in turning them off the electric current which kept me from escaping. Eventually they did figure it out, and together the six of them walked through the wall in front of me.
     "Thank goodness you came," I said once all six of them were in the room.
     They all stood there looking at me for a very long time with their mouths wide open. I fail to see why however. I hadn't changed that much since I left Earth, and I tried as much as I could to keep up with current fashion.
     "Who are you?" asked the tallest girl with brown hair.
     "What is the year?" I asked them.
     "1997. Why?" said the shortest girl with black hair.
     "Has it really been that long? I was abducted almost three years ago. I haven't had much human contact since then," I dazed off in my own thoughts about home until the tallest girl, who looked slightly angry, brought me back down to reality.
     "Why did you call us here? And what's with the accent. Are you English or something?"
     "Yes, I'm from England. And as to why I called you here, you're all in grave danger."
     "Danger? From what? The Noryicians?" asked the girl with glasses and curly brown hair. She looked really worried, "If they hurt Jason, I'll track them all down and kill them. Every single one of them!"
     Now she looked angry, but I understood why. Anything for love, as they say.
     "No, from the Yornicians. They're trying to take all your energy away for their own uses. I think that's what they eat, but I can't be sure. They locked me in this room after I tried to escape, and they won't tell me anything. What they do tell me is probably all lies anyway, but I know what I saw. They can't hide the truth from me, and when I get back, just wait until I tell my parents. Then we'll see who's boss..." I realized at this point that I was babbling mindlessly, and they were all looking at me with blank expressions on their faces.
     "I'm sorry. After being alone for so long, you get used to hearing the sound of your own voice, rather than that of others," I apologized slowly.
     "So what exactly happened anyway. What are the Yornicians really doing here?" asked the blonde girl standing nearest to me.
     "Before I tell my tale, I believe some introductions are in order. My name is Alexander."
     "Leda," said the blonde closest to me.
     "Rebecca," said the girl who had been angry about her boyfriend, but now seemed to have calmed down.
     "Cole," said the only guy in the group.
     "Katherine," said the tallest girl who was impatient.
     "Deanna," said a girl who looked somewhat like Katherine.
     "Sethe," said the black haired, slightly mysterious looking girl.
     I shook hands with them all, then began my story.
     "About three years ago, I was walking down Oxford street in London, where I live, on my way to meet someone, when all of a sudden..."
     "Who was the someone?" Deanna inquired, interrupting me.
     "It was a friend. A girl. The most beautiful girl who ever lived. Elizabeth. I think about her all the time. It's the only thing that kept me sane. She must think I left without saying good-bye, but I would never..." I realized that I was rambling once again, I cleared my throat, and began again.
     "Anyway, as I was saying, I was walking down Oxford street on my way to meet Elizabeth, and a few of my school chums spotted me and came over. We were talking and suddenly the street lamp above us exploded. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a room similar to this one on a bed. I'm sure this is similar to your experience?" I asked, nodding in their directions. They nodded affirmatively.
     "Well, the Yornicians at that time had not quite mastered the English language. I must admit, they've come a long way since then, although they still don't quite understand the concept of contractions. Anyway, they got me to help them learn English, and in turn they taught me how to speak telepathically, and walk through walls. Although, it wasn't as easy for them to teach me, as it was to teach you."
     "Why?" asked Cole.
     "Because they hadn't tried to teach many humans at that point. But let me finish my story. They explained to me about how they came here to study our culture and how they "ran out of energy". There were, I think, six of them still alive at that point. They had explained how they originally powered the ship, with twelve of them using their energy to charge up the "batteries" of the ship, and then it would run for quite some time before they needed to do it again. By that time they would have regained any energy they had lost. But six of them had died and they had no idea how to replace them. Six of them alone wouldn't be able to power up the ship without dying which would, as you can gather, be rather pointless."
     "We know most of this stuff all ready, what's the point?" asked Katherine, getting even more impatient.
      "Be patient my dear girl. I'm getting to the point. I suggested that perhaps they could use human energy as well as Yornician energy. They up and grabbed five other random people, some of whom I must say were quite unpleasant to be with."
      I thought about this one older gentleman who had such a reak about him, I wondered if he had ever seen a bathtub in his life. And of course there had been that one woman who nearly fainted everytime a Yornician tried to speak with her. What a mess.
      Leda cleared her throat, "Um... this is all very interesting, but..."
     "I'm so sorry, as I said, it's been a long time since I've talked to anyone but myself. I'll try to stay on track. Where was I? Oh yes, the five other people. They tried to form their double circle with us. They, being the more focused with their energy, formed the outside circle, while we made up the inside circle. There was some debate amungst them over whether this was a good arangement, but we went ahead anyway. Well, I needn't tell you it didn't work. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here, now would you?
      "We all panicked when we felt all of our energy draining away. There was a lot of shouting in my head as the Yornicians tried to figure out what was going on and the next we knew, we woke up in a room feeling like we'd been run over by a lorry."
      "I know that feeling," said Deanna.
      "I'm sure you do. They said that something had gone wrong. They felt it had something to do with our genetic make-up or something, who knows. That's what they claimed anyway. I rather think they tried to drain us of our energy but weren't able to for some reason. Well, it was time for us to leave, but when they tried to wipe my memory, they couldn't for some reason. A "chemical imbalance" they said. I'm not sure why they actually kept me here. I certainly don't trust them."
      "But what do we have to do with all this? If it didn't work before, why would they believe it would work now?" asked Sethe.
      "I don't know. I think they've developed something new, they've been really secretive lately."
     "But why did they lock you in here?" Leda looking around my small prison.
      It really wasn't all that small normally, but having seven people in it really diminished it's size. There was a small bed in one corner, a shelf with some books that they acquired from who knows where and a TV that I could opperate with my mind. Not too bad really, but a prison none the less.
     "Because I tried to escape," I replied, realizing they were all waiting for me to respont, "They gave me free reign of the ship until one day I figured out what they were really doing and tried to escape in one of their shuttles. Then they locked me up in here because they said the world would be thrown into chaos if they found out about what I know. I was 18 for goodness sake! Who'd believe an 18 year old anyway."
      "So, you believe that the Yornicians have found some way to take all our energy... as in... kill us? I'm really starting to not like these people any more," said Deanna, "I mean, we asked for Tylenol like half an hour ago, and we still haven't got it."
     "Oh man that's right! We forgot about that. I bet they're out looking for us right now. We've got to hide. But how can we hide from people who can get into our heads? They just come into our brains and find out where we are. We're trapped! We're all going to die! We're too young to die! Oh why did I have to get out of bed this morning!" moaned and yelled Cole melodramatically, but also with some truth to what he was saying.
     "We've got to get to a shuttle. Alexander, where are the shuttle bays? We haven't been everywhere on this ship yet," said Leda taking charge before chaos could take hold.
     "Follow me. But I must warn you, what Cole said was true. If you're not careful, they can get into your heads and find out where you are. I'm surprised they haven't already done so. Something must have come up. Those Noryicians you were talking about earlier. You've encountered them?"
     "Yeah, we had the unfortunate experience of meeting them," said Sethe between her teeth, and then after thinking for a moment, she said, "Actually, if what you told us about the Yornicians is true, maybe the Noryicians aren't that bad."
     "That's true. They could be," said Rebecca, "I hope so, I don't want Jason to be in trouble."
     "Would you all stop all this chatting and follow me," I said, getting slightly impatient and a little worried about the Yornicians finding us and imprisoning us all, "Keep you're thoughts very guarded. They can hone in on us no matter what thought they catch. That's why I really wonder why they haven't come after us yet."
     "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," said Leda as I passed through the wall with her behind me.
     With my mind, I very carefully reached out to find them so we could avoid them. I was almost caught once when my mind slipped into thoughts of seeing Elizabeth again. Ah Elizabeth. So many years have gone by since that day when I told you I loved you. What must you think of me now? Going off without saying good-bye. Never showing up for our date. It was not by choice my darling, and all shall be explained when I return. Once I get off this blasted ship and back home to you.... My thoughts were interrupted by Katherine banging into me from behind.
     "Pay attention would you!" she scowled at me. I was really developing a small dislike for this large girl with her fiery temper.
     "Pay attention yourself. You're the one who banged into me," I said curtly.
     "Would you two please not fight. We're trying to get off this ship in one piece, remember," said Leda, sounding quite a bit like the ward matron for my boarding house at Eton.
     We continued on, surprisingly, without incident. I was beginning to worry about how easy this was. Perhaps the Yornicians knew what we were up to, and were waiting in the shuttle bay to pounce on us and take our energy. I tried to see if they were in the shuttle bay, but they were either doing a very good job of blocking me, or they weren't there.
     "Okay, I believe the coast is clear," I said before going through the last wall to the shuttle bay.
     "I hope so," said Cole, looking a little bit out of breath, "I'm starting to get really sick of all this walking."
     We went through the wall to find the shuttle bay seemingly deserted. I went over to a panel on the far wall that controlled the shuttle bay doors.
     "You know how to use that?" asked Deanna in surprise.
     "You don't hang around a ship for three years without picking up a few things. Now, when I open these doors, an alarm will sound. We'll only have a few seconds before they close the doors from the main control room. Everyone into the..." I was cut off by a voice that sounded like it wasn't directed at us.
     "The humans are in the shuttle bay. They are trying to escape. We cannot let them," it was one of the Yornicians. Toemara, I believe, who sounded incredibly tired.
     "Oh no, they know where we are! They're going to find us and kill us! We've got to get out of here!" exclaimed Deanna in a frenzy.
     "Hello, can anyone hear us?" the voice was that of a girl, somewhere outside of the ship.
     "Help!" Deanna exclaimed, "You have to get us out of here!"
     "We stole one of the Noryician's shuttles. We're on our way over. Just stay together and we'll be there soon," came the voice of another girl in the same place.
     "What's going on over there Rebecca?" asked a male voice.
     "Just hurry up and get here. We need help!" exclaimed Rebecca.
     "We're on our way," he said.
     "Who are you people? Are you the six that got away?" I asked.
     "We could ask you the same question," said one of the girls. "We just got away from the Noryicians. What's wrong over there?"
     "We shouldn't be talking at this distance, the Yornicians might hear us. We'll explain everything when you get here. We're at the main docking bay of the ship. We'll open it up right now," I said as I punched in the final codes to open the doors.
     "The Yornicians are probably on their way, we're never going to get out," Deanna complained.
     "Yes we will," I went over to the wall we came through and searched it for a while until I found the small panel that controls the electric flow through the walls. I opened it up, and turned on the power, "That won't keep them out forever, but at least it'll bide us some time.
     "Wait, if the doors are open to space, why aren't we getting sucked out?" asked Sethe.
     "There's a penetreble force field that covers the door. It saves having to clear this area out every time someone wants to take a shuttle out. It saves time and it's very practical."
     "Thank you Mr. Spock," said Katherine sarcastically.
     I pretended not to hear her comment as I did not really understand it. We saw, through the doors, a small, garishly colored shuttle approaching at a fairly high speed. Luckily, the pilot managed to slow down before they crashed into the ship. They landed... well... they landed. How well was not really important at the time. Six people climbed out of the ship. One of the guys, I guessed it to be Jason, ran over to Rebecca and they embraced as if they never wanted to let go. Ah, young love.
     "I missed you so much..." began Rebecca.
     "I was so worried..." overlapped Jason.
     "I thought I'd never get to see you again," they said in unison.
     "I know that this is an emotional time and reunions are very touching, but I think we have a bigger problem on our hands right now," I said cutting in.
     As if on cue, there was a bang and a zap coming from the other side of the wall. One of the Yornicians obviously didn't realize the force field had been put in place. I started looking for a suitable Yornician shuttle.
     One of the girls, who had just come out of the Noryician shuttle behind me, giggled and said in a high pitched voice, "Hey! Somebody closed the wall! That's so cool! I'm glad it wasn't me this time, that hurts! It looks funny when somebody else does though, but still..."
     "We haven't got time for this!" shouted Cole, "The Yornicians will get through that wall in any second and we'll all be sitting ducks. Let's just get into that shuttle over there and leave."
     We all agreed and piled into the shuttle he had pointed at. As I later found out, the shuttle that the other six had come in, was barely big enough for the six of them, and the Yornician shuttle was designed to fit eleven, but the thirteen of us managed to all squeeze into it. The other guy from the shuttle and I got into the pilot chairs because he had piloted the Noryician shuttle and he seemed to know a bit about driving them. We started up the engine and prepared for take off.
     Just as we were pulling out of the shuttle bay, the two Yornicians entered through the wall. They looked paler than usual, if that's at all possible, and thinner as well. If I knew anything about alien anatomy, I'd say they looked sick. They shuffled through the wall and as we left, they didn't even try to stop us, although they did look quite sad. For a moment I almost felt sorry for them, but then I remembered what they did and I faced forward and pulled out into the huge starry expanse of space.

Chapter 14
Leda

      The shuttle pulled out from the Yornician ship and into the vastness of space. It was more incredible than I had ever imagined. Sure, I had seen pictures of space, but they were nothing in comparison to this. As I looked back, I saw the two Yornicians standing in the shuttle bay watching sadly as the ship left. I felt a small pang of guilt in leaving them with no energy to eventually die, without ever getting home. I nearly told Nick to turn the shuttle back around and take us back to the Yornicians, but then I remembered what Alexander had told us about them, and decided against it. Alexander, Nick, and Amy were piloting the shuttle without much difficulty.
     Alexander was fairly tall with sandy blond hair and an awesome accent. He turned around in his chair to look back at we who were crammed into the back of the shuttle with barely enough room to breath.
      "We're somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter. These shuttles are unfortunately a lot slower than the ships so it may be several days before we reach Earth. For the benefit of six people who were on the other ship, my name is Alexander."
      "I'm Amy."
      "My name's Nick."
      "Jason."
      "Charlotte."
      "Ginny."
      "What?" asked Chelsea, looking up startled when Ginny nudged her.
      "Elizabeth?" said Alexander with a startled look on his face as he looked at Chelsea, "Is it you?"
      "No. Who's Elizabeth? My name's Chelsea," said Chelsea, bewildered.
      "I'm sorry you just look so much like... if I didn't know better I'd... this is just so amazing!" Alexander exclaimed disjointedly.
      "What?" asked Chelsea, looking completely lost.
      "There's a girl back home named Elizabeth who looks exactly like you. She's the love of my life. I hope she hasn't forgotten me, it's been so long, so terribly long..."
      He trailed off, lost in thought about his girl back home.
      "Why are you here? And who are you?" asked Ginny suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
      For the benefit of those who hadn't been with us when Alexander first explained himself, he told his story, almost exactly the way he had said it the first time. Almost verbatim, in fact. I looked over at Sethe, and she was mouthing the words along with him. I guess with all the time on his hands, he had time to figure out exactly what to say to people when they asked.
      "This just doesn't make any sense," exclaimed Charlotte after he was done, "I never saw the Yornicians hurt anyone, and they promised me they didn't. We all said we'd help them, and now we've left them there to die!"
      "What you remember about the Yornicians was probably just false memories that they put into your head," said Alexander.
      "But, Charlotte wasn't taken to another room to remember. She knew what was going on right away," said Rebecca, momentarily de-attaching herself from Jason. I know for sure that they weren't upset by the close quarters.
      "The memories were probably inputed into her brain while she was still asleep. They probably meant to do that to all of you, but you woke up before they could finish," Alexander explained.
      "But what about the Noryicians? And their suits that make them look like Yornicians? What has that got to do with all this?" asked Ginny.
      "What?" the six of us who were not on the Noryician ship at the time chorused.
      I listened as Ginny explained about finding the suits that looked like the Yornicians and the awful instruments of torture. Try as I might, I just couldn't make all these pieces fit together. Why were the Noryicians impersonating the Yornicians if the Yornicians were evil? What was the point? Both groups could be bad, that was true, this wasn't television after all, but if they were both bad, and against each other, why would one impersonate the other? What would that accomplish?
     "Wait," I thought, "What about all the stories you hear about people telling wacked out tales of being abducted by tall grayish aliens who perform weird experiments. According to Alexander, the Yornicians kill all their abducties and feed off their energy, so it must have been done by the Noryicians. Which leads me back to the same question, why were the Noryicians trying to make humans believe the Yornicians were bad? Could they, in some twisted way, have been trying to save us from them? Are the Yornicians really bad? "
      "I've asked myself that same question a thousand times, and never really come up with an answer. Is one species more important than the other? By our ideas about survival of the fittest, they have the right to kill us," said Sethe, breaking in on my thoughts.
      "Ooo I hate being with people who can read my thoughts sometimes," I scowled.
      Alexander turned to look at Chelsea, who was trying very hard to find a comfortable spot to sleep in. He smiled slightly with a far off look in his eyes. I noticed a small tear forming in the corner of his eye.
      "What was she like, Elizabeth, I mean," I asked him quietly quietly.
      "She was like a goddess, the sun, and the moon all rolled into one. She was more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed, and of all the men in England, she turned her beautiful rays towards me. She could have done much better for herself. Sure she was from a poor family, but she had real potential to lift herself above her class. I suppose it was her class that ultimately separated us. I come from a very rich family. My father was a duke, and I his eldest son. I was next in line to become a duke, but while I was on that blasted ship, my father took ill and died, so the title was given to my brother as I found out on the news. Not that I minded loosing the title. I didn't really want it anyway. All I ever wanted in life was Elizabeth..." his voice trailed off as he was once again lost in thought about his missed love.
      He suddenly seemed to focus on Chelsea, who looked very uncomfortable trying to lie on the hard floor. He turned to me and said, "Would you like to take the controls for a while? Thanks."
      Before I could answer him, he was out of his chair and across the shuttle beside Chelsea. He offered to let her lay her head in his lap. She smiled and thanked him. She curled up with her head in his lap. I had never seen Chelsea quite so happy as she was then. Normally she's really cranky when she's tired, but she was smiling and laughing with Alexander. They started talking quietly, as Chelsea's eyes began to droop. Eventually, she fell asleep, with a smile on her face, as Alexander stroked her hair gently. I sighed at how fickle men can be and turned to the controls in front of me.
      Nick explained that all I had to do was watch a little monitor that showed all the things that were around us, and make sure we didn't bump into any planets or anything. Everyone but Nick, Amy and I were either asleep or nearly there. Rebecca and Jason had claimed a corner for themselves and were curled up in each others arms, Deanna, Sethe, Katherine and Ginny had claimed the only real beds in the shuttle. They were more like holes in the wall, sort of like the ones on sailing ships. Cole had been leaning on me when I had been sitting on the floor, but now that I had left, he had fallen over and was now curled up on the floor in a little ball. It was kinda cute. I reached down and smoothed his messed up hair.
      Sighing, I turned back around to the monitor. There didn't seem to be anything interesting to look at. The screen slowly changed to show where the closest planets to us were, and how far away from them we were, as well as various asteroids and such. We were slowly approaching Jupiter. Next came the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, Mars itself, and finally home sweet home. Earth wasn't shown on the monitor yet, but I knew enough about the solar system to know that it's after Mars. I looked up through the window to watch as we slowly got closer and closer to Jupiter. It was bigger than anything I could ever had imagined. We had to veer off course to avoid being pulled in by it's enormous gravitation pull. As I looked back to the monitor, something appeared in the lower right corner. It wasn't a planet, and it was moving faster than an asteroid, and faster than us for that matter.
      "Nick, there's something coming towards us really fast!" I exclaimed.
      "Oh man. We've got to get out of here. I think it's probably either the Noryician's or the Yornician's ship," Nick said after I pointed the object out to him.
      "We've got more problems," said Amy after joining us, "We're coming up to the asteroid belt."
      "This really sucks," I said.
      "That's one way to put it," said Nick.
      "Well, now we don't have to wonder which ship it is," I said.
      "Why not?" they asked.
      "Because there's two of them. They're both coming after us."
      "Okay, well, this ship may be slower, but it's also smaller. I think if we went through the asteroid belt, we have a better chance of surviving than they do," said Nick after thinking for a moment.
      I suddenly felt that we were in the middle of a sci-fi movie, but the logic seemed to hold from fiction to reality, so I agreed with him.
      "Let's do it. Everyone back there hold on to something solid. We're in for a rough ride," I said with as much authority as I could muster.
      With Nick piloting the ship, we sped up to the asteroid belt and started swerving and taking a lot of hairpin turns to avoid becoming space junk. The two ships followed us in, but at a slower speed than what they had been traveling before.
     Suddenly, the first ship fired an energy beam and just barely missed us. We stared to panic a little, taking tighter turns, and zooming through tight spots at the last possible second, trying to lose them. The first ship, which we could now see was the Noryician's, fired again at our shuttle. This time though, they didn't miss.
      "I think they just hit an engine," shouted Nick over the hissing and crackling of the ship.
      "Great. Now what do we do? We've tried everything to lose them, and they just keep coming," I said, starting to get really frustrated.
      The Noryician ship fired again. One of the walls in the back exploded in a rain of sparks, right next to Chelsea and Alexander. Alexander tried to shield Chelsea from the blast with his body. The wall was on fire, and it didn't look like there were any extinguishers on board.
      "Don't these people know anything about fire safety?" screamed Katherine over the din.
      Alexander got up and ripped one of the blankets off of Ginny and threw it over the fire, burning his hands in the process. He managed to put the fire out, but his hands and hair were slightly singed.
      He sat down next to the wall, out of breath and exhausted. Chelsea was standing over him, asking if he was alright. Before he could reply, the Noryician ship fired again, aiming for the same spot, and the wall exploded once again, killing Alexander almost instantly. If he hadn't been sitting there, the explosion would have certainly killed Chelsea, as well as majorly burning a lot of other people.
     "Alexander! NO!!!!" screamed Chelsea as she ran to his burned body, "No it's not fair! Don't leave me please! You can't die! You can't!" She was shaking him, trying to bring him back even though he was obviously dead.
     Ginny tried to console her, but it was no use. Chelsea curled up in a corner of the shuttle, her body racked with sobs, rocking herself back and forth. I wanted to go to her, but I was stuck helping Nick piolet the ship, and if we didn't do something fast, Alexander wouldn't be the only casualty.
     "Hold on everyone," said Nick as he somehow squeezed between two large asteroids just before they collided with each other. They smashed the Noryician ship between them like a cockroach.
     "That's for Alexander," I said under my breath.
     "Hooray!" we all shouted.
     Nick, Amy and I turned around to see if everyone, besides Alexander and Chelsea, were okay. Besides a few bumps and bruises, minor burns and a very thin hull, we were all okay. Our celebration had a dismal feel to it because of the loss of our companion, whom we'd only known for a few hours. I turned to face forward, not wanting everyone else to see my tears. Nick put his hand on my shoulder to console me, but I saw the tears in his eyes, and it just made me want to cry harder. I looked forward, just in time to see an asteroid zooming towards us.
     "Turn! Turn!" I shouted. I knew it was too late though. I put my arm up to shield myself from the impact just as the asteroid was hit by an energy beam and destroyed.
     "Where did that beam come from?" asked Amy
     "The Yornician ship. They saved us," I said not believing my eyes.
     "Even after we left them like that?" said Ginny, coming to my side.
     "Apparently," I said, "That was probably all the energy they had left."
     After a moment of consideration, I said, "We have to help them. Nick, take us back to the ship."
     After docking the extremely damaged shuttle, we ran through the ship to the place where we had first tried to give them our energy before the Noryicians took us. There, on the floor, were Isshudo and Toemara. Their energy depleted, they were very nearly dead. The diamond patterned cylander emited only the faintest of lights. We did the only thing we could think of to repay them for saving our lives. We formed the two circles once more and focused our energy into the cylinder before us.
     "Do it for Alexander," said Chelsea, with fresh tears in her eyes.

Epilogue

Dear Charlotte,
      How are things in Fredricton? Things here are pretty much okay, all things considered. I'm sorry your Dad got transferred back to New Brunswick. We didn't get a chance to really get to know each other when our lives aren't in danger. Things are finally getting back to normal now. When we first came back to school after the summer holidays, people were pretty weird to us, not that I really blame them. I guess it's a time like this when you find out who your real friends are. Luckily, most of mine were with me, so I don't have to worry about it. Really, it's hard for anyone not to believe us after what we did at NASA. Do you remember the looks on those officers faces when the Yornicians transported us right in front of their faces? I thought that young guy was going to wet his pants or something!
     Ginny's now completely convinced she's going to be an astronaut and signed up for a summer program at NASA. I think she just wants to be there with that really cute guy we met, Jaime was it? Anyway, Chelsea's slowly but surely getting over Alexander, well, we all are, it just seems to have hit her the hardest. She did get quite close to him before, well, you know, his death and all. What's really helping is that there's this guy in the grade eleven who's really into her. He's really cute, and nice too. His name's Kevin. I just wish the two of them would get together soon. She did manage to get in touch with Alexander's family, and she finally tracked down Elizabeth to tell them what happened to him. I'm not sure they really believed her, but at least Alexander can rest easy knowing that Elizabeth knows he didn't just skip out on her.
      Nick and Sethe are battling over some small detail of our trip, and I don't remember it either way, so perhaps you can remember. Did the Yornicians have four fingers or three? I think it's silly to even ask the question, but you know them, if there's something to battle about, they will. I really miss seeing Nick, Sethe, and Ginny all the time, now that we're not in the same school with them. Next year will be much better though with them here in High School.
      Amy's found the love of her life on, of all places, the Internet. Don't laugh, a neighbour of mine got married to some guy in Texas that she met in a chat room two years ago, and they're still perfectly happy, so maybe it is possible to find the right guy on there. Personally, I prefer to meet guys up front first to make sure they really are who they say they are.
     Jason and Rebecca are still together, big surprise there. The only difference is that Jason is even more over protective of Rebecca than before, and he doesn't insult her half as much as he used to. Deanna's getting along better at her school now than last year. Unfortunately, she won't be going to our High School because it's too far away. We'll still see her though, she always comes at the most interesting times, don't you think?
     Katherine is starting a new comic book about our adventures. I think she giving us all a free, autographed version once it's published. She better, or I'll be forced to buy one.
     I often wonder if the Yornicians got all the way home or not. I hope they did. I also hope the Noryicians don't send another ship out here. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what happened to us. It was just so weird and mixed up. It seemed like everyone was telling us something different, and until the end, I didn't know who to believe. I guess we'll never know for sure, will we. Anyway, I have to get back to studying for a huge French test. Too bad we can't speak to each other telepathically anymore, otherwise tests would be a snap! Write back soon.
      Your friend always,
      Leda Chalmers

Any comments on this story? Please e-mail me. [email protected]

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